


Redemption

by vanerz



Category: Inazuma Eleven
Genre: Football | Soccer, Friendship, Gen, Hopefully nyohohoho, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-11 21:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 49,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3332933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanerz/pseuds/vanerz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inazuma Caravan, facing a severe player shortage, decides to recruit competent past opponents as a last-minute strategy. Enter Fudou Akio. S2 what-if, collaboration with envysparkler (@FFN).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the AO3 mirror of this fic, which was originally posted yesterday (2/10), for Fudou day. Updates from now on will be posted on both sites simultaneously so never fear!

“Where are we heading, coach?” Aki asked as they passed the entrance to Fukuoka. “We could’ve stayed a little longer to practice.”

“To recruit another player.”

Hitomiko’s statement abruptly silenced every conversation in the bus and Kidou turned to look at her, curious. It was true that with the loss of Kazemaru and Kurimatsu, their defense was falling apart, but Kidou couldn’t think of anyone strong enough to take their place.

Most football teams across the country were in the hospital, courtesy of Gemini Storm and Epsilon. The few that weren’t had fallen prey to Zeus or Teikoku. There were a handful of players still uninjured and Kidou didn’t think they could hold up to the assault of Aliea.

“Is it someone we know?” Domon asked as the rest of the team listened, curious.

Hitomiko turned back to look at them. “Yes,” she replied after a slight pause. Kidou narrowed his eyes at the hesitation. She was hiding something.

“Who do we know that’s good enough to battle Aliea?” Ichinose turned to Megane, who shrugged.

“Maybe it’s Gouenji!” Endou said excitedly and the bus erupted into furious conversations.

“Is Gouenji coming back?” Touko asked Kidou, her expression hopeful. But Kidou had been watching Hitomiko the whole time, and he didn’t like what he saw.

“No, it’s not him,” Kidou said firmly and everyone turned towards him, “is it, Coach Hitomiko?” Everyone waited for her answer.

She regarded him with cold blue eyes. “No.”

“If not Gouenji, then who is it?” Ichinose asked.

“…Fudou Akio.”

The bus went dead silent.

Touko’s laugh broke the tension. “You’re joking, right? Fudou Akio? Who would play with him?” Her laughter trailed into empty air when she realized that Hitomiko hadn’t answered.

“Who’s Fudou Akio?” Tachimukai asked timidly.

“He’s one of Kageyama’s lackeys,” Ichinose said, his face twisted in anger. “He helped Kidou’s old teammates destroy their bodies to win!”

Kidou hadn’t even realized his hands were shaking until Ichinose’s words. He curled them into fists and turned towards Hitomiko. She was staring straight ahead, ignoring them.

“After all he’s done to us, how _dare_ you give him a place on this team?!” Touko shouted and the others shouted their agreement.

“I will recruit anyone who will help us against Genesis. If you disagree with my decision, you can consider yourself no longer a member of the Inazuma Caravan,” Hitomiko said coldly. “And that goes for anyone who agrees with her.”

Touko faltered, and the bus again fell silent.

“It’s okay, guys.” Endou stood up. “If Fudou can help us against Aliea, then he’s our teammate!”

No one responded.

 _It’s not that simple, Endou_ , Kidou closed his eyes, trying to control his shaking fists, _and not that easy._

The bus was silent all the way to Ehime.

* * *

– _‘Tell us to stop? Who do you think you are?…’_

_‘The little brat fancies himself a leader!’_

_‘You’re the useless one’ –_

Fudou jolted upright and gasped, heaving for breath as he stared into empty air, seeing Kageyama’s ruthless expression and the corridors filling with water as he sought to escape.

Useless. He was always useless, manipulated and cast aside by those more powerful than him.

Just like his father.

“Akio?” His mom slid open the door, smiling when she saw him. “Oh, good, you’re already awake. Breakfast is ready.”

He looked at her and blinked, still caught in the aftereffects of his dream.

“Akio?” She stepped inside, looking worried. “Are you alright?”

He snapped out of it. “I’m fine.” He smiled weakly at her, noting the dark circles under her eyes. After Shin Teikoku, she was having trouble holding down a job, and took increasingly more exhausting jobs.

Also Fudou’s fault.

“If you’re sick, I can call the department and –”

“No, I’m fine, _kaasan_ , really.” He stood up and began rolling his mattress. “You should get going, you’ll be late.”

His mom looked at the clock, startled. “Oh, it’s getting late.” She turned back to Fudou. “I’m getting off early today – maybe we could make dinner together?”

Fudou forced a smile on his face, and said, “Of course. Just like the old days.” His mom beamed at him before leaving. Fudou waited until he heard the door close before letting his expression crumple.

His mother had tried so hard to give them a new life in Ehime, and Fudou had thrown that in her face when he went to join Kageyama. Now his name was mud with half the town and they no longer had the money to leave.

And he couldn’t even blame Raimon – he started this when he accepted the Aliea stone, when he broke Kageyama out of jail.

A crime he was still getting punished for.

The interference of the grizzled detective tracking Kageyama had helped Fudou avoid juvie, but he wasn’t able to avoid the sentence altogether. Six straight months of community service, and with school canceled due to Aliea, that meant ten hours of grueling, humiliating labor. The kids he’d recruited to Shin Teikoku had a lot of relatives on the police force, and not a single officer wasted any time in assuring Fudou that he was the worst thing that had happened to the town.

Fudou wandered down to the kitchen, aware that he had only fifteen minutes to reach the roads he would be cleaning. A part of him – the part that rebelled, that still called out for the thrill of adrenaline in his veins – wanted to defy the deadline, just to see what they’d do. But the more reasonable part of him pointed out that his suffering could get much worse.

His mother’s suffering could get much worse.

Fudou listlessly ate breakfast, imagining the long day in front of him. He still had five months and two weeks to go and each would likely be as hellish as the last.

He had just gotten up when the doorbell sounded.

Fudou froze.

He wondered if he’d imagined it, and waited a few seconds to see. The doorbell rung again.

Officially curious, Fudou walked to the main entrance. No one used the doorbell. His neighbors used hard knocks or yells, depending on their level of anger, and Fudou had managed to differentiate between the knocks of random citizens and the parents of the kids he’d recruited to Shin Teikoku.

But no one used the doorbell.

Fudou unlocked the door and slid it open. Kira Hitomiko stood outside, one hand outstretched to the doorbell, as if she was about to ring it again.

Fudou slammed the door in her face.

He backed up, shaking, his eyes wide. It couldn’t be. It couldn't be. _It couldn’t be_ . There was no way the coach of Inazuma Caravan was here. He was hallucinating. He _had_ to be.

Fudou hurried to the kitchen and peered through the blinds. Hitomiko had closed the gate and was walking back to the large, blue-and-yellow caravan. He could see faces pressed up against the windows.

No.

Fudou slid to the floor and stared into the empty air. Every time he even _thought_ of getting his life back on track, something happened.

Something _always_ happened.

The gang, in Tokyo. Kageyama and the Aliea stone. And now Inazuma Caravan, back for revenge.

He was going to be late. Fudou got up and glanced through the window; the caravan was still there. Well, they could wait as long as they liked. Fudou turned and headed towards the back of the house. Locking the back door behind him, he turned and hoisted himself silently above the fence, careful not to make a sound.

He was sneaking out of his own house.

This was a new low.

* * *

“Late?” Officer Taiya stared down at him, his lip curled up in a thuggish sneer. “It's only been two weeks, Fudou-kun. You can't afford to be slipping up like this.”

His tone may have been mocking, but Fudou wasn't really registering it. After seeing Kira Hitomiko and the Raimon caravan again, his brain was still in overdrive. He still had the presence of mind to reach for the gloves and rubbish bags with his left hand, though. He'd accidentally scratched his right arm while escaping his house, and he didn't want the officer to see the bright red mark and punish him for presumed fighting or whatever he could think of.

After a mumbled apology, he hurried to his assigned section of road, ready for another day of drudgery. Sometimes, he really felt like the only person assigned to clean Ehime's roads. Ehime wasn't _that_ big, surely?

An hour, a sore back, and a bulging rubbish bag later and he had almost completed his round. In the distance, he could see the police station… and a blue and yellow van, parked outside the precinct. His heart sunk.

They sure were persistent.

Officer Taiya was outside, his head turning here and there, clearly looking for him. When they made contact, his frown deepened; Fudou stared back coolly.

“Ah, Fudou,” the officer said when Fudou got close enough. His tone was devoid of its usual antagonism, and he gestured at the bulging trash bag in his arms. “You can get rid of that quickly. There's someone here for you.”

Fudou nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Well, the good thing was that Officer Taiya was at least being less of an asshole. He'd have to play nice in the presence of outsiders. Especially these Raimon heroes. What did they even want with him? To point and laugh at what became of him before going on their merry crusading way?

Well, to be honest, if it was just that, he didn't care. Being laughed at didn't make you poorer or increase your sentence. All he had to do was not react. He had the power in this situation.

But no, the Inazuma Caravan was such a disgustingly morally upright bunch that this probably wasn't what they were here for.

A sudden shot of panic coursed through him. He had got off pretty lightly considering what he'd pulled. He'd broken a murderer out of prison, after all, and he knew that Kageyama had done terrible things to many of the people in the van. Were they coming for him to serve some kind of justice since they couldn't exactly get at Kageyama under the sea? But Officer Taiya's bear hand was on his shoulder now, and just the thought of trembling under his grip cut those thoughts off. Fudou would be damned if he showed weakness in front of his parole officer.

As Officer Taiya steered him towards the station waiting room, Fudou had a precious few seconds to wipe his mind blank and regain his composure. Both sides wouldn't be able to try much since it was an easily accessible area of the police station, with CCTV to boot. It was better to get this over with.

He entered the room, meeting Kira Hitomiko's eyes for the second time that day, telling himself that whatever happened next wouldn't matter.

After all, it wasn't like his life could get much worse.

* * *

“What?”

Fudou couldn't believe his ears. This was a joke, right? He'd nod, Kira would flick her hair, and both Kira and Officer Taiya would burst into laughter.

“ _What?_ ” Officer Taiya sounded much surer of what he'd just heard. “Absolutely not. Do you even know what this boy has done?”

“Yes,” Kira said coolly. “I was there. We all were,” she added, gesturing at the blue and yellow bus and the people watching from inside.

“He was an accomplice to terrorists! His actions led to grievous physical and mental harm for many parties involved. Including _your_ players. People could have died!”

“Ah,” Kira said. “I am aware that the court acknowledged he was not entirely culpable. His status as a minor was considered in the sentencing, after all.”

How had she even got her hands on the details of his case?

Well, no matter. Her knowing the details of his court case was embarrassing, but ultimately inconsequential.

“Well, Fudou-kun?” Kira said. Her navy blue eyes bore into him. They were so deep that it was unnerving.

He still didn't know what to think. This couldn't be real.

“I see you may need some more convincing.” Kira uncrossed her arms, and leaned against the wall. Her gaze flickered around the room.

“I am aware of your circumstances. You can rest assured that your time at the Inazuma Caravan will count towards your community service. We _are_ dealing with terrorists, after all.”

“Extraterrorists?” Fudou couldn't keep the quip from slipping out. Did aliens even count as terrorists under Earth laws? This whole situation was crazy.

Kira ignored him, and continued speaking.

“Of course, Fudou-kun, it's your choice. But, if I may say so, we can offer you some very attractive terms. Number 1.” She ticked the points off with her fingers. “You will be playing football again. I'm sure a sportsman of your calibre will appreciate the chance to maintain your skills, especially with players of this standard.” She gestured at the window, at the players sitting in the caravan. Though they were far away, Fudou could see the clear distaste on some of their faces. One of them was definitely Kidou-kun. Well, what else was new?

“Number 2. While our travel itinerary is necessarily constrained by our scouting reports as well as Aliea's demands, the fact remains that we are conducting a nationwide scouting tour in order to build the best team possible. You will have the chance to travel all over the country. Your food and accommodation will be paid for.”

Fudou shrugged.

“Finally.” Kira smirked. “You will also be paid.”

“What?”

“Of course. Did you think the government was going to make children take on a group of terrorists without adequate compensation?”

Fudou kept his answer to himself.

* * *

While recruiting for Shin Teikoku, Fudou had come to learn a lot about psychology.

Some people had been easy to convince to join. Just the thought of playing football had been enough for them.

Others had been a bit harder, but the promise of a full scholarship had made them come around. Fudou thought he understood these people the most; you had to do what kept you moving forward, after all.

Finally, for the last few, he'd had to pull out all the stops. Talk about future glory, power, how much others would come to respect them, how strong they would get. He wasn't sure even now whether he believed in those words or thought they were utter calculated rubbish.

He could see the same feelings, hidden behind steel and cool composure, in Kira's gaze.

Him? Just being paid was enough for him. Sure, the other stuff like the travelling was a good bonus, but to be honest, all Kira had had to do was mention the salary.

Eh.

It could be worse.

And so, knowing that Kira hadn't even needed to try that hard, and knowing that she'd known that, but, in the end, not even caring, Fudou Akio confirmed his choice.

After all, how bad could it be?

“Let's do this.”


	2. Chapter 2

Life on the Inazuma Caravan was pretty different, to say the least.

There were the mundane things, like school, because being a government mercenary apparently didn't preclude one from having to fulfill their mandatory education requirements. That was a good thing, actually, because Fudou had been worrying about how he'd even manage to get accepted into a school after this whole mess was over, given his record. It would be so easy for schools to say that he wouldn't be able to fit in with the curriculum because he had missed all those months of school. He needed all the advantages he could get.

He dialed the only number he had saved in his speed dial. One, two, three rings, and then the line opened.

"Hello?"

"Mum. It's me, Akio."

His mother gasped. "Akio! How are you doing? Tell me more about your travels. Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"We just stopped off at a small town. We're staying in an inn tonight, so I should get enough sleep."

"And do you always stop at towns every night?"

He couldn't hide anything from his mum. Fudou bit his lip to stop himself from smiling and mulled for a few seconds over what to say. He didn't want to worry her too much.

"When we're traveling, we have sleeping bags. It was a bit uncomfortable at first but everyone else seems used to it."

"That's good, dear. It seems a bit strange that they wouldn't ensure that you all stay somewhere nice every night and get a good night's sleep, though."

"Yeah. Sometimes it can't be helped, I guess. They should know best though. Anyway, get this. They gave me a cellphone to keep in contact with the rest of the team and so we can stay in touch with our families and friends. Everyone has one, the government is paying for everything. This phone even has Internet. Unlimited data, too. Wonder if they'll let us keep it after this is all over. So, yeah," he trailed off, suddenly conscious that he was kind of throwing their poverty into his mum's face. "I mean, it's pretty neat. I can email you and video call you and stuff."

His mother laughed weakly. "How are you getting along with your teammates?"

"Practice is all right…" Fudou knew his mother could hear the blatant untruth in his words. In the few practices they'd had since he joined, his teammates had refused to really play with him. The white-haired one, Fubuki, was practically avoiding him obsessively. He never saw him outside of practice, and even in practice, he was somehow always standing on the other side of the field. The only people on the team he had actually talked to had been Endou, Kino, the manager girl, and the substitute goalie. Tachimukai was his name, right?

He coughed to break the silence. "Well, I'm still not fitting in with the team yet. It'll take some time, but we play together so much that it shouldn't be long. Anyway, I've got to go now. I've gotta get back for dinner."

"Bye, Akio. I love you and call again soon. Remember to keep your charm from the temple with you. Stay safe."

After he hung up, Fudou couldn't help but scoff. Fitting into his team would take some time? The understatement of the millennium.

A quick and dirty way to understand the social politics of the Inazuma Caravan at a glance would be to look at its seating arrangements. People who sat together were usually pretty good friends. The people in the rows ahead and behind were usually on good terms with each other.

Ever since Fudou had moved in, he had sat alone. The rows in front of and behind him were sparsely populated, to the extent that the rest of the team squeezed in with each other more to compensate.

Did they seriously think he wouldn't notice?

No, his teammates weren't idiots. They just didn't care.

He returned just in time for dinner at the inn, which he was actually mildly looking forward to. Fudou's experience of traditional inn food was limited to the television, because god knows  _ryokans_ charged a fortune for some reason considering all they gave you was food and an old room. Well, the people on TV always seemed to find inn food really good.

The meal was simple but had an appetizing aroma, and he dug in. It had been a while since he ate something to enjoy it in addition to replenishing his energy.

Well, what do you know. He felt bad to be thinking this, but. Yes.

It was better than his mother's cooking.

"AAAAAAAHHH!"

Crying and a mischievous gremlin cackling erupted from the table to the far right.

"C'mon, Kogure!" Kabeyama wailed. "Don't do this when we're staying in an inn for once! This is really good food!"

"Usshisshisshisshi!"

"Why  _me_  all the time? Prank some of the newer guys! You still haven't pranked Fud-"

Kabeyama's eyes widened, and he sent a shifty glance Fudou's way. When he saw that Fudou was looking back, he jumped and averted his gaze. "It's nooooot faaaaair!"

Fudou was conscious of all the eyes on him now. Even some of the people who sat off at a distance to the rest of the team had paused, wondering how he would react.

"Ah!" Aki said loudly. She slammed both hands on the table and stood up. Her eyes were narrowed threateningly. "Kabeyama-kun! Are you saying that what we make isn't good enough for you?"

"How dare you? Behave, Kogure-kun! After all we do for you!" Haruna stood up as well, folding her arms and glaring at the two boys in the spotlight.

"Yes! I mean no! It's delicious!" Kabeyama shook his head frantically, and Kogure was chiming in, too, now that Haruna had involved him in the situation. The situation devolved into the standard Inazuma Caravan bickering.

Fudou looked away.

* * *

The next day, Coach Kira announced that they would be having a training match. Fudou didn't bother looking up – at the moment, they had twelve players. Evenly divisible, but a match with six players was ridiculous.

"I'm dividing you into teams of six players each." Apparently she didn't share his opinion.

Fudou just raised an eyebrow as he felt the collective weight of eleven stares. Well, there was no way this was going to end well.

"Tachimukai-kun, you have the left goal. Fubuki, Kidou, Kabeyama, Touko and Ichinose join him," Hitomiko said. Fudou let out a silent sigh of relief. At least she didn't have the stupidity to put him with Kidou.

"Endou, right goal, along with Rika, Domon, Kogure, Megane and Fudou," she continued, eyeing them. "You will play to first goal."

Not for the first time, Fudou wondered if she was mad. First goal? They had only  _six_  players! How was he ever supposed to formulate a strategy with –

Fudou cut off his mental rant as he realized what he was thinking. He had got so used to practice, he'd forgotten that this wasn't Kageyama he was dealing with. This wasn't Shin Teikoku. He wasn't a gamemaker here, and no one would listen to him anyway.

Mutely, he followed the rest of his 'team' and settled into the open spot they had so graciously left for him. Right opposite Fubuki, in fact, who was studiously avoiding so much as glancing in his direction.

Rika started the kickoff and Fudou moved up with the rest of them, hugging the left sideline. Ichinose stole the ball from her and he moved back. Forward and back and forward and back – the team was so eager to keep the ball on the right side that it bounced out of bounds nearly twenty times.

Fudou stood along on his side of the field and blinked. He knew what he'd done to them, what Shin Teikoku had done to the members of Raimon. He knew that he'd sentenced at least two players to the hospital. He  _knew_ , objectively, that they must hate him.

But he had not been prepared to deal with this… this utter  _rejection_.

He stopped as the ball moved forward again, Rika bypassing Ichinose and aiming for the goal. Tachimukai easily batted her shot out of the air and tossed it to Kabeyama, who moved up the field.

He wondered whether he should make the effort, whether he should initiate a reconciliation. But then he saw Ichinose's icy glare and decided to stay out of it.

Glancing at Hitomiko's cold expression, Fudou knew that this wasn't what she intended when she brought him on the team. But that was  _her_  problem, not his. As long as he got paid, he saw no reason to interact with a team that hated him. No reason at all.

Scowling, he scuffed the grass, taking a grim satisfaction in destroying a small piece of the field. He was so engrossed in his task that he almost missed Endou's shout.

"Fudou!"

Startled, he turned and watched the ball fly at him. For a second, he was too shocked to move – then he regained his composure and trapped the ball easily, turning to the empty field that awaited him.

He smirked and ran forward, his mind already calculating strategies to bring down the defenders – Kabeyama he could fool with a feint, Fubuki required a little more trickery while Kidou… he didn't think he could get pass the genius gamemaker.

But no one came forward to block him. He stopped at the goal line and turned – they were all standing in the same positions, looking away from him, as if he wasn't even worth their notice.

Turning back, he looked at a bewildered Tachimukai. He glared at him with all the anger churning in his stomach and felt a vicious thrill as Tachimukai flinched. He lined the ball up with the goal and gave it a savage launch.

Tachimukai missed and the ball connected solidly with the net, swishing. Fudou watched it spin and felt empty.

He walked away.

* * *

It was Tachimukai who found him sulking in a nearby empty playground.

Fudou was staring idly at the dirt, one hand curled around the chain of the swing as it moved slightly. He barely looked up at his teammate's approach. He was probably only here to tell him that Hitomiko had changed her mind. He was no longer a member of Raimon – he'd have to go back to Ehime and see the smirk on Officer Taiya's face and…

Fudou was suddenly aware that Tachimukai was speaking. "…didn't expect it," the sandy-haired boy said awkwardly. Fudou stared at him blankly. Tachimukai's eyes widened, and he shook his head frantically. "Not that it wasn't a good shot!" He waved his hands about. "It was amazing – it was really powerful! I don't think I've ever seen a normal shot so powerful!"

Fudou stared and waited for him to leave, but it seemed that the backup goalkeeper was waiting for a response.

"Thank you," Fudou finally muttered, hoping that was enough.

Unfortunately, Tachimukai took it as an invitation and took the swing next to his, grinning. "Do you play forward?" he asked.

"Midfielder," Fudou replied, confused. Was he actually trying to make conversation?

"I'm a midfielder too," Tachimukai said brightly, before drooping. "Of course, you already knew that."

It was getting more difficult to keep his disinterested expression – Fudou almost chuckled.

"So, did Aliea destroy your school, too?" Tachimukai asked.

"…No," Fudou said after a pause, remembering the purple stone and feeling something wrench in his chest. "No, they didn't." He'd managed to destroy it all on his own.

"Oh," Tachimukai said, letting his voice trail off.

Fudou wondered when he was going to get to the point – obviously Tachimukai was here for something, and the sooner he asked for it, the sooner Fudou could reject it and go back to sulking.

"Um," Tachimukai said nervously, his face red. "Um, will you train with me, Fudou-san?"

"What?" Fudou asked, certain he hadn't heard properly.

"Will you train with me?" Tachimukai asked again. "I, um… Endou-san is a really good goalkeeper and well, everyone is busy with their individual training and your kick was really powerful."

Fudou looked at him, bewildered. "Why would you want to train with me?" He just managed to bite off the  _'why don't you hate me?'_  and remembered that Tachimukai hadn't seen him in Shin Teikoku.

"Because you're really strong!" Tachimukai smiled. Fudou just started at him, a bit taken back – him?  _strong?_  – but decided it couldn't hurt.

"Okay," he said cautiously, still not sure that it wasn't a trick. If Tachimukai started laughing at him, he was going to kick him in the face, probation or not.

But Tachimukai just kept up the grin. "Thank you so much, Fudou-san!"

Fudou was saved from having to reply by Haruna, who burst into the playground, gasping for air.

"They're… here…" she panted when she caught sight of them. "Epsilon's… here."

Fudou and Tachimukai ran to the field, Haruna behind them. Sure enough, Epsilon stood there, wearing the red and black uniforms he'd seen so often on TV. In person, they looked so much more malevolent, red eyes glinting in faces twisted by evil. They all wore the same, slightly eerie smile.

"What is Epsilon doing here?" Tachimukai whispered as they joined the back of the group.

The one in the front turned, as if he'd heard. "We are not Epsilon. We are Epsilon Kai!" He laughed grandiosely. "And we will  _crush_  you!" Fudou flinched backwards – they had the aura of the Aliea twisted around them.

"Did Genesis send you?" Endou asked, and Fudou inwardly wondered who Genesis was and how many bloody teams Aliea had sent out. He knew that the man behind all of this was giving away the crystal like candy, but this was getting ridiculous.

And to think that Fudou had actually felt  _honored_  that he'd been given the Aliea. It was starting to seem like the only requirement to possess the Aliea stone was being between the ages of twelve and fifteen and possessing a talent for football.

"No." Another player stepped forward. "We are here by the will of Desarm-sama and we will show you what happens to those that defy Aliea Academy!"

Desarm swept his gaze over all of them, grinning when he met Fubuki's eyes. "I will  _break_  you," he said, smile widened in anticipation. "And it will taste sweeter than all the power in the world!"

Fubuki jumped and curled in even further on himself. After one last leer, Desarm and Epsilon Kai retreated to their side of the field and settled into position, waiting.

Fudou followed Raimon back to the caravan, where they started getting ready. The temple charm his mother gave him was lying on top of his uniform. After a moment's deliberation, he grabbed it, tying it round his neck. He needed all the luck he could get.

"What do we do?" Touko asked in a low voice, "We have only twelve players and –" She looked at Fudou and flinched when she saw him looking back. Fudou sneered.

"I will organize the formation," Hitomiko said. "If we don't win against Epsilon Kai, we won't stand a chance against Genesis." Her furious look silenced all complaints before they began. "Ichinose and Rika will play as two-top. Kidou, Fudou, Touko, Tachimukai as midfielders. Kogure, Fubuki, Domon and Kabeyama as defense. Endou in the goal. Megane on the bench."

Fudou froze – he was next to Kidou? This was not going to end well.

Predictably, Ichinose was the first to respond. "You can't be serious, coach!" he protested. "This formation is ridiculous! You can't –"

"I can, Ichinose-kun, and I will," Hitomiko cut him off. "And you will follow my orders or you will be off this team. And that goes for anyone else who chooses to sacrifice teamwork for past grudges."

Fudou winced – that was pretty specific.

"Your behavior at training was despicable," she continued. "And a repeat will have those responsible kicked out. Do you understand?" Everyone, including Tachimukai, was carefully not looking at Fudou.

"Yes, coach," they muttered in unison, before taking their places on the field. Fudou jogged to the left center and took his place as midfielder. He snuck a glance to his left. Kidou was staring straight ahead, giving no indication that he noticed Fudou.

The referee blew the whistle and the match began.


	3. Chapter 3

Running after Zel, _again_ , Kidou cursed the entire team. Was it even possible to be _this_ fast!? Just when Raimon thought they’d trained enough to catch up to the aliens, they went and left them in the dust again. And that wasn’t even counting their _hissatsus_. Only Fubuki’s presence in the defense had caused the point difference to remain zero.

Seeing an opening, he signaled to Touko, who stole the ball away from Zel with a well-timed “The… Tower!!”. She turned back to the front and they pushed forward again. After dodging a few Epsilon Kai defenders, Touko passed the ball up to Ichinose, who had already started the running jump and backflips. He jumped into a handstand, propelling himself up with his hands, and spun his legs rapidly, slotting the ball neatly between them and sending it straight at the goal.

“Spinning Shot!”

It was all executed within half a minute. The perfect counterattack.

Desarm laughed, and held out one hand. His fingers closed around the ball without him even breaking a sweat.

He sneered at them. “How pitiful. This is the best Earth has to offer? You are all nothing but insects.”

Kidou grit his teeth. Well, if a single _hissatsu_ wouldn’t work, what about a combination one?

Desarm tossed the ball back into play and Kidou caught Domon’s eye motioning him forward. Endou, who had realized what they wanted to do, ran out of the goal.

Spotting the moment when Epsilon Kai was about to send out a pass, Kidou sped forward and intercepted it. He passed to Ichinose again and watched as they executed the Phoenix.

Desarm caught it again, without even using a _hissatsu_.

Kidou ground his teeth and glared at him. The Epsilon captain laughed, and it echoed off all the trees surrounding them.

“Is this really all you have? You are all _powerless_ to stop us!”

He looked directly at Kidou, who at least had the presence of mind not to flinch. Smirking, Desarm tossed the ball up the side of the field.

His message was clear. This was boring him.

Epsilon Kai brought the ball up, getting past Rika easily. Kidou ran to cover the flank, his heart in his throat as he watched Fudou confront the alien forward.

Fudou was playing better than most of his teammates. His movements were calculated and quick and he was finding, and using, openings before Kidou even registered them. Maybe running out on practice earlier had given him extra energy.

Whatever it was, though, and as much as Kidou hated to admit it, his presence had changed the match. Fudou executed a textbook block tackle on the Epsilon Kai forward and passed awkwardly to Touko. Moments later, she came up against Zel.

“Touko!” Kidou called out, receiving the ball from her in the next instant. He met eyes with Ichinose and nodded. Kidou launched the ball high up into the air as Ichinose jumped and headbutted it back down.

“Twin Boost!” both boys yelled at Kidou sent the finisher towards the Epsilon Kai goal.

Desarm did use a _hissatsu_ this time, conjuring up a portal that sucked the ball in and spat it back out in front of him. You could view that as progress, but the way Desarm tossed his head made it clear that his patience was running thin.

“This match is useless,” he scorned. “It’s a waste of my time to play. I thought that Raimon had become stronger,” his red eyes found Fubuki, “but I see that’s not the case. If anything, they’ve become weaker.” Kidou watched Fubuki in horror as the boy began to shake.

“You!” Desarm pointed straight at Fubuki. “Why are you hiding from me? Show me your shots! Show me your powerful shots!!”

“Don’t listen to him, Fubuki!” Kidou shouted, with half a mind to stalk over to Desarm and shut him up by any means possible. But Fubuki shook his head. He took a step back, then another, not meeting anyone’s gaze.

Desarm tossed the ball to Zel, who smiled. “Shall we change formation, Desarm-sama?” He moved to kick the ball out-of-bounds.

But then Fudou darted in and stole it, bypassing the forwards and standing in front of Desarm at the goal. Kidou started at him in shock. All around the field, Raimon and Epsilon Kai players alike turned to watch Fudou.

What did he think he was doing?

“Useless?” Fudou’s voice sounded furious. “I’ll show you _useless_!” He crouched low, lifting his leg high up behind him –

“Oh,” Desarm said, looking interested. “Bring it!”

Fudou’s face was twisted with rage. Kidou’s eyes widened as he whistled. No… no, it couldn’t be…

“Emperor Penguin No. 1!” 

* * *

Useless?

_Useless!?_

–‘ _Second-rate_ _’  
_ ‘ _Delinquent scum_ _’  
_ ‘You’re  _the useless one’ –_

All this ran through Fudou’s mind as he readied the shot.

It had not been planned. He had seen the opportunity and seized it. And as the strain from the technique bit into his calf, his brain had screamed, ‘Who’s the useless one… _NOW_!?’

The strain from using the technique nearly brought him to his knees. As it was, Fudou could only focus on the ball, watching from beneath his brow as it flew towards the goal. Epsilon Kai’s goalie raised his hand high in the air and yelled something, but, frankly, Fudou was buzzing too much to hear what it was.

He’d used Emperor Penguin No. 1 before. Of course. Kageyama had made every forward and midfielder in Shin Teikoku learn it.

It didn’t hurt less the more times you did it.

But it didn’t hurt more, either.

The ball spun madly against the tip of Desarm’s drill, swerving left and right as it sought to break through. Fudou straightened up, unable to stop his legs from shaking, and watched as the drill shattered into pieces.

His sense of hearing came back in time for him to hear the swish of the ball against the net. Then a whistle marked the goal, and screeched again as the commentator announced half-time.

Flushing, battered, and with ice running through his veins, Fudou was assaulted by a rush of pink before he even managed to make it back to the team bench.

“What was _that_?” Touko demanded, one hand on her hip and the other pointing archly at Epsilon Kai’s goalmouth.

“Eh?” Fudou stared at her, trying to hide the effort it was taking to stay standing. Though he wouldn’t admit it, using the technique had taken some toll on him. He was still regaining his bearings. “That was… the goal.”

It had gone in. They had scored.

And any amount of pain was worth that.

“Huh?” Touko’s tone was back to the one she normally used with him. “What’s your pro–”

Then there was a soft thump on his shoulder, and Fudou turned to see his captain with a completely unfamiliar expression on his face. There was a short silence, Touko sputtering to a halt, and all of Raimon’s eyes on them, before Endou spoke.

“Don’t you ever try that again, Fudou.”

“Why?” Fudou said, confused. “We’re leading now.”

Endou’s fist spasmed. Fudou noticed then that both of them were clenched tight.

Coach Kira clapped her hands.

“Enough. We don’t have much time left for our team talk and you need to rest up for the second half. Huddle in.” Her raised hand hushed the whispers before they even started, and she continued, “Otonashi-san, please tend to Fudou.”

Haruna nodded and rushed forward, and the rest of the team slowly drifted to the bench. As he shuffled closer to Hitomiko, Fudou let the manager inspect his right leg, almost sighing in relief as she applied ice packs all over it. He could feel his teammates’ glances on him, as always. Sometimes he even caught them for a few seconds before they snapped their heads away.

Hitomiko gave a half-time talk which completely flew past him. Well, that wasn’t exactly accurate. He did catch the bits about how their “teamwork had improved” and how their “strategy wouldn’t change”, but throughout the whole talk, what stood out to him the most was how completely out-of-touch she was with Raimon. Then again, what should he have expected from the person who brought him here in the first place?

But it didn’t matter in the end because Fudou had found a way to contribute to the team, no matter how much some of his teammates didn’t want his services. And between community service with Officer Taiya and Emperor Penguin No. 1, he knew what his choice would be every time.

* * *

Hitomiko decided to keep the same lineup for the second half, despite Haruna’s insistence to the contrary. Honestly, Fudou was glad. Otonashi hadn’t known what she was talking about. While he was aware that his leg looked like it had been through a bear trap, it really did feel fine. He had no doubt he could play through the rest of the match.

But he didn’t miss the glance Endou sent the rest of the team just as they were taking their positions.

He figured out the meaning of his captain’s signal soon enough, when the second half started and Fudou found himself pretty much on the other side of the field to the ball for ages. It was like the training session just now all over again. Tachimukai and Touko hogged the ball up and down the right side of the field, and the way Kidou was positioning himself looked less like backup and more like boxing out.

If this was a display of concern, Fudou would almost be touched. But, really, it was annoying.

It wouldn’t last, though. Though Tachimukai was trying his best to hustle with Epsilon Kai, there was a reason he had only been noticed after switching position to goalkeeper.

With a smooth tackle, one of the Epsilon Kai forwards relieved him of the ball. (Fudou winced at Tachimukai crumpled to the ground, but fortunately he was back up in seconds.) As Touko and Kidou rushed him, their opponent drew his leg back and sent it careening over to the empty left side of the field.

Finally. This was the moment he had been waiting for.

He wouldn’t mess this up.

The forward called Zel (or whatever) caught the ball on his chest, then shifted it down expertly to his feet. He met Fudou’s gaze with his own and smirked.

“You’re not getting this ball,” he said. “Why don’t you read the atmosphere a little? Your team doesn’t want you touching it anyway.”

Fudou scoffed. “Does it look like I care?”

Adrenaline was rushing through his veins. The rest from his relative inactivity this half had powered him up and made him feel like he could take on the world.

“Killer Slide!”

His tackle was much more vicious than the one that floored Tachimukai had been (thankfully, no whistle), but Fudou was beyond caring. When his feet touched the ball, a spark shot through him, propelling him forward. He was practically humming from his athlete’s high.

“Fudou!”

Fudou could count the number of times his teammates had said his name in match situations with the fingers of one hand. (And including the times outside of match situations would require just one extra hand.) And if he earned 100 yen each time _this_ particular teammate had said it to him, he would have had 0 yen before this point in time.

This, this influence, this ability to make a difference, was true power, not Epsilon Kai’s bullying and taunting.

Laughing, he punted the ball at Kidou’s incredulous mug. He was feeling generous, after all.

“Do what you want with it, Kidou-kun!” he yelled. “There’ll be much much more where that came from!”

Zel was still behind him, panting and clearly in shock from having been overpowered. To Fudou’s right were the other forwards and attacking midfielders of Epsilon Kai, scrambling back to the goal after overcommitting to their failed offense.

But the momentum was with Raimon now. It had been steadily building up since his goal in the first half, and his pass had catapulted it into full steam. Kidou and Ichinose brought the ball upfield, trading the ball between them. And when Kidou brought his thumb and index finger to his mouth and let out a loud whistle, Fudou wasn’t even mad.

When Raimon scored their second goal and the resulting cheers drowned out the whistle, all he felt was deep satisfaction.

* * *

The whistle blew to indicate time and Raimon looked at each other, incredulous. Despite the overwhelming strength difference, despite the skills of Epsilon Kai’s goalie, they’d won. Fudou let himself smile as he walked back to Raimon’s side of the field. All he wanted to do right now was lie down and take a long nap.

He passed Endou on his way back. His captain stopped in front of Desarm, who was on his knees, gripping the grass, and held out a hand.

“On Earth, there aren’t any allies or enemies when the match is over,” he said. (Fudou thought he did an admirable job of refraining from snorting.)

“I don’t forgive what you’re doing, but I want you guys to understand the fun of football,” Endou continued.

Desarm stood up and wavered. Fudou was almost about to turn his back and take his leave when he, too, held out his hand to Endou.

“We’ll win next time for sure,” he said, and then there was a bang and a bright blue flash.

A small boy with hair like fluffy snow appeared in the middle of the field. He was only recognizable as a member of Aliea from the black and blue football at his feet. He addressed them all without even bothering to open his eyes.

“I’m Gazel, the leader of the master-rank team Diamond Dust.” He then opened his eyes, immediately zeroing in on the gaping Endou. “So you’re Endou? I’ve found my new practice opponent.”

Desarm smiled, though it was nothing like the mocking and boastful ones in the match earlier. He stepped away from Endou.

“With this loss, Epsilon has become completely useless,” Gazel finished and raised his hand high in the air. Fudou watched, transfixed, as he sent the black ball flying straight at Epsilon Kai. The ball exploded in a burst of bright blue light. When Fudou regained his vision, Epsilon Kai and Gazel were gone.

“Endou Mamoru,” Gazel’s disembodied voice spoke out to all of them. “I look forward to the day when I can fight you.”

The mood was somber as Raimon returned to the Inazuma Caravan. Fudou, himself, was wondering how many master-rank teams there were. When everyone had taken their seats, Coach Kira began the match debriefing.

“Congratulations, team,” she said. “You’re getting closer to the level required to defeat Genesis. Look forward to preparing for your next challenge.”

She was interrupted by Ichinose. “Coach, I have something to say.”

The mood shifted, and Fudou perked up now. This was getting interesting.

“What do you want?” Kira asked blandly.

“Yes, we won today.” It was clear that the golden boy was trying to remain civil. “But I don’t think we were playing as Raimon. I don’t know how to explain it, but we were different.”

“What’s more important to you, Ichinose-kun, victory or friendship?”

Ichinose’s brow furrowed. His eyes flashed momentarily. “You know it’s _not_ about that, Coach. Besides, look at what it took out of us. All of us. And if Genesis is stronger than Epsilon Kai… we need more players. Good players. People we can trust.”

Ah. Fudou slumped back into his seat. More of the same, then.

“I agree with Darling,” Rika said. “Our team isn’t meshing together right now. It’s not the same Raimon I joined.”

“I don’t want to win if it means using the same methods as the aliens,” Kabeyama muttered.

“All right, let’s get to the root of the problem here,” Coach Kira said. “It’s Emperor Penguin No. 1, isn’t it?”

Oh, how Fudou loved being in the spotlight. He met each and every gaze on him, and shrugged.

“That’s it!” Touko stood up, and Fudou learned just how much presence being the daughter of the prime minister had given her. “I’m sick of your attitude! You think you can just waltz in here and use these dirty tactics to win games? And to think I was worried about you!”

Worried? Her? She really didn’t need to be, though. He’d practiced that technique tens of times. He wouldn’t be as weak as to ruin his leg by using it three times a day, much less one.

The chatter grew. Ichinose was deep in conversation with Domon, and Rika was nodding and chiming in at every other sentence. Kabeyama was complaining, about everything probably, to a clearly conflicted Tachimukai. Curiously, Fubuki, Endou, and Kidou were silent.

The last one was the most curious, admittedly.

“You going to answer me at some point, Fudou?” Touko demanded.

Fudou narrowed his eyes. He was sick of her holier-than-thou attitude. “Oh, like you never thought that pitting Shin Teikoku against Aliea Academy would kill two birds with one stone,” he sneered.

All conversation halted and Fudou once again found himself the center of attention. Touko looked horrified. Kabeyama looked guilty. But it was the sheer anger on Endou’s face that stopped Fudou from another retort.

“No,” Endou said coldly, “we never thought that. I wouldn’t wish Emperor Penguin No. 1 on my worst enemy.”

Fudou stifled the urge to ask whether or not he still qualified as Endou’s worst enemy.

“It’s an effective technique,” he argued instead, “as long as it’s used in –”

“We don’t need to do that to win.” Endou’s dark voice cut him off. “We shouldn’t need to do that to win.”

“It’s a tool!” Fudou was beginning to realize why the fight against Aliea was taking so long. “You have to use all the tools you have!”

“Not if it hurts our teammates,” Tachimukai said quietly, the traitor.

“He’s right,” Touko replied. “That’s not the kind of football we play.”

“Not the kind of –” Fudou bit off his curse. “As long as it’s used only once in a match, it’s _fine_ –”

“And can you use it only one time in a match, Fudou?” Ichinose asked. Fudou stared at him, confused. Of course he could, there was no way he was risking not playing again –

“Are you sure you won’t succumb to the power?” Ichinose continued. “End up doing whatever you can to win?”

 _End up like Sakuma._ Fudou could hear his unspoken words. He was tempted to say no, but stopped when he remembered the look in Sakuma’s eyes. Half-insane with rage, fighting past the pain, doing everything he could to gain that extra edge…

That extra power. A dark part of his heart hungered for it, throbbed in tune with his ankle, burned with desire for more, _more_ , **more** …

Fudou swallowed.

“That’s what I thought,” Ichinose said, and sat back.

“Then it’s decided,” Endou said determinedly. “There will be no more usage of _any_ forbidden technique by _anybody_.” He eyed the rest of the Inazuma Caravan, as if worried that they might have been swayed to Fudou’s side.

“But…” Tachimukai raised his hand timidly, waiting until Endou looked to him to speak up. “Even with all our power, it took a forbidden technique to win us the game. And if Diamond Dust is a master-rank team, then they’ll be more powerful than Epsilon…”

“Our _hissatsus_ won’t work on them,” Kidou said, speaking up for the first time. “We need a forward, a powerful striker, a –”

“An ace.” Hitomiko smiled. She had a look of satisfaction on her face, a stark contrast to the fury before. She looked like someone who’d finally gotten her way.

“Well, Hibiki-san mentioned rumors of a flame striker in Okinawa…”


	4. Chapter 4

"Coach Hibiki said that," Kidou said sceptically.

Everyone except Tachimukai looked at Fudou, not even bothering to hide it this time.

"…What?" Fudou said, before suddenly realizing why. "Look, this time I had nothing to do with it!"

"Hibiki-san personally confirmed the information with me over the phone," Hitomiko said smoothly. "He has been following up on this case for quite some time."

At this, chatter broke out again. Kidou settled back into his chair, satisfied, only to be accosted by Touko. Everybody seemed to want to share their own take on the matter. Fudou was finally forgotten, left to marvel at the effect that even the specter of Raimon's ace striker had on its team morale.

Not that he didn't see where they were coming from. He'd watched a few of Raimon's games on TV back when they had been competing in the Football Frontier, and Gouenji had been easily the best forward on the team. He'd probably be the best forward in the Raimon Caravan too. Ichinose was playing out of position (no thanks to Fudou joining), and Rika, though she tried, didn't quite have what it took when it came to finishing.

And Megane… Yeah… the less said about him, the better.

Hitomiko left right after they reached the inn, managing to catch the last ferry to Okinawa to "look for Gouenji" (Fudou had his doubts). She had called in the morning only to put Natsumi in charge of arranging their transport to Okinawa (understandable, since Endou was still noticeably hopped up on the prospect of seeing Gouenji again).

Natsumi was nothing if not efficient. The Caravan started traveling to Okinawa the next morning and were on the ferry before noon. Buoyed by the night's rest and the prospect of seeing Gouenji again, half the team was excitedly talking about him, and the other half excitedly listening.

Of course, Fudou was in neither of those halves. Instead, he was in his bunk, resting his head on arms folded back, trying to get some rest. As much as he didn't want to admit it, despite his bravado yesterday, Emperor Penguin No. 1 had really taken a lot out of him.

A shrill screech jolted him from his reverie, followed, unsurprisingly, by a series of evil gremlin snickers. Then, just as it had every hour or so over the past day, yet another announcement played indicating they had reached a new island.

Like most Japanese, Fudou was no stranger to islands. Hell, Ehime was in an island just off the main island of Honshu. But he could find absolutely nothing to distinguish each of these island stops from another. Every single island had the same palm trees, the same beaches, the same boats, the same wild surfers performing crazy tricks. It had been cool (to observe from the privacy of his bunk window) the first few times, but now it was just getting ridiculous.

And to think that this ferry ride would last 25 hours. How many more island stops would they make?

The ship horn puffed,  _yet again_ , as the ship neared the port. Fudou braced for the stop and started counting the seconds before the ship set sail again. He usually only managed to get to about 220 counts.

And then Tachimukai came to a skidding stop just outside the room.

"Fudou-san!" he called out. "We gotta go! There's been an accident!"

* * *

The less  _really_  said about Megane, the better.

Standing off from the rest of the team, in the shade, Fudou struggled to maintain a neutral expression as Natsumi announced the result of her inquiries.

Touko didn't bother with that.

"The next ship is TOMORROW!?" she screeched, taking out the hearing of anyone unfortunate enough to be near her.

"I suppose we'll have to stay on this island for the night," Natsumi said, looking about as unimpressed as Fudou felt. It was one of the rare times he actually agreed with Rika. This was all completely Megane's fault.

And then the guy didn't even have the nerve to take part in the impromptu training session Endou set up. Instead, as Fudou and the others had a 5-on-5 scrimmage on the beach, Megane sat with Kogure and the managers on the bench, occasionally yelling out words of encouragement.

When they were finally done with their beach training session, having even managed to rope in the surfer who'd rescued Megane earlier (who actually had quite impressive skills), Fudou took his leave. He didn't think he could take being in the general company of the Raimon Caravan any longer without first recharging on some himself time.

So, naturally, the faint thumps of someone running after him on the beach followed him.

"Fudou-san!" Tachimukai, because of course it would be him, called out. "Are you going to train? May I join you?"

Fudou turned back and waited for him to catch up. He shrugged.

"Why not? We did agree on it."

Tachimukai beamed, and Fudou was temporarily floored. He recovered soon enough when Tachimukai kicked a ball towards him, and the two of them ran further up the beach and into the underbrush, passing to each other every few steps, only stopping when they found a clearing big enough to practice in.

"So, what were you working on again?" Fudou asked as Tachimukai marked out a goal with a few branches.

"Nothing special, really," Tachimukai said. "I know my  _hissatsus_  could use some work, though. I can do Majin the Hand and God Hand, but they're nowhere near as good as Endou-san's. I'm just out of practice."

"Is this about the scrimmage earlier?" Because, honestly, everyone had been rattled that the surfer – Tsunami, was it? Whatever – had been able to score on both of Raimon's goalkeepers.

"Not really," Tachimukai said, looking away, which meant that it was. Fudou snorted and brought the ball under his right foot, at ready position to score.

"Well, you gonna be up for this any time soon?"

Tachimukai grinned then and slapped both cheeks a few times. "Thanks, Fudou-san," he said before widening his stance and holding both hands out.

"My pleasure," Fudou replied, though he didn't really know what for, and without further ado launched the ball at the makeshift goal.

They returned to the inn just in time to catch the start of the sashimi feast Tsunami had prepared for Raimon.

* * *

Finally reaching Okinawa was a relief, though they were quickly accosted by Tsunami, who had apparently gone right ahead to sign up for the football team in his school, Oumihara Junior High.

Fudou zoned out the moment they reached Tsunami's school and were introduced to his team of buffoons (of which the coach was the worst). The moment they showed that they cared nothing of playing a proper match, goofing around despite the threat of Aliea looming above them, he zoned out completely. It was obvious that they were analyzing the pattern of their dribbling and passes, and if Kidou-kun couldn't figure that out, that wasn't his problem.

The truly interesting thing happened at the end of the match.

Just as Raimon were huddling up, with Endou and Tsunami deep in discussion (and the rest of Oumihara probably rolling around on the ground and cheering), the field flashed impossibly bright blue. Fudou sighed, already knowing who it was. At least there was no loud bang this time.

Gazel appeared in the middle of the field, paying no attention to the Oumihara players, who had hidden behind Tsunami and Otomura and were gawking at him. Instead, his gaze was fixed firmly on Endou. Fudou, who had the misfortune to be standing close to his captain at that moment, suppressed a shiver.

"Endou Mamoru," Gazel said smoothly. "I have come to issue an official challenge from my team, Diamond Dust."

He pointed at him, finger and thin arm ramrod-straight, gaze sharpening.

"The match will be in ten days. Be ready."

Further away, Kabeyama was sputtering. Did that guy not have any sense of self-preservation? (Rhetorical question. Fudou already knew the answer.)

Endou, chin up, met Gazel's gaze unflinchingly.

"We accept your challenge!"

Coach Kira, who had been observing from the bench, stood up.

"We will be leaving Okinawa within the week," she said. (That was the first Fudou and, he was willing to bet, the rest of the team heard of it.) "Unless you selfishly insist on us postponing our plans?"

"There is no need to change your travel plans," Gazel replied. "We will easily find you."

The air grew brighter again, but the accompanying chills that shot right into Fudou's bones made it clear it wasn't just Okinawa's beautiful weather. And then, suddenly, the cold vanished, and it became warmer than ever.

Okinawa's burly coach ran up, blinding Fudou with his bright tropical shirt. He was waving an extremely sharp barbecue fork about.

"Great news, guys!" he boomed out. "We're gonna throw a huge barbecue!"

* * *

It seemed that Okinawa as a whole was a lot calmer than everywhere else. The constant undercurrent of fear was gone and the sun and beaches (or perhaps it was the inanely relaxed Oumihara team) seemed to lighten everyone on the Raimon Caravan's mood. They had even put aside the search for Gouenji and Diamond Dust's challenge to lounge around on the beach and watch Endou try to refine his latest  _hissatsu_ , something-or-other Justice.

It involved surfing.

 _Surfing_.

Fudou was beginning to wonder whether the endless battle against Aliea was only endless because of all the senseless things the Inazuma Caravan did. If they cut their side trips and precious  _pride_  out of everything, Aliea would probably have been defeated by now.

Fudou scowled, his mood growing darker as Tachimukai too ran off to change for the training. Others were joining in, lured by the promise of free surfing lessons and the tantalizing view of the beach.

"Fudou-san!" Tachimukai shouted breathlessly, standing near the water and waving as if Fudou couldn't see him. "Join us!"

Fudou's scowl deepened.

"It'll be fun, man," Tsunami chimed in, grinning. "You gotta let loose every now and then. Ride the beat!"

Fudou glared, mentally adding Tsunami's name to the list of people that pissed him off before reluctantly going to get changed.

He came out wearing an old set of shorts, making for the waves. Tachimukai and Tsunami were still waiting for him, while the rest of Oumihara and Raimon were already splashing in the water.

"Have you ever surfed before, Fudou-san?" Tachimukai asked eagerly.

"Do you really want to wear that in the water?" Tsunami cut across him and pointed at Fudou's neck. Fudou looked down and saw the temple charm. Strange. He thought he'd removed it after the Epsilon Kai match.

Then again, in all the fuss about Gouenji, it was possible that he'd forgotten.

"You probably don't want to get that wet," Tsunami said. Fudou grudgingly acknowledged that he was right and carefully slid the charm off, placing it in his bag.

"All right," he said. Might as well make the best of this situation. "Let's learn how to surf."

Tachimukai grinned widely and dragged him into the cold water. Fudou hissed and jerked back, but followed him all the same. As he watched the goalkeeper fumble with the surfboard and walk straight into the wave, his mouth tugged up at the edges.

It was a strange feeling.

There, in the water, with the hot sun warming him, watching his teammates shriek and flail, Fudou could see the beauty of island life.

He felt good, as he hadn't felt in months.

When he finally managed to correctly land on his feet and shift the surfboard, he was thrilled. He rode a wave – his first wave – and grinned. It felt like it was splitting his face.

When the surfing (training) was over, they came back to the beach for the barbecue. Fudou cleaned three skewers before his mouth encountered burning hot spice.

His heart swelled and he fought to keep the grin off his face, even as he spat out the meat and glared at Kogure, promising a slow and painful death.

It was possibly the happiest he'd ever been.

Too bad it didn't last.


	5. Chapter 5

Fudou felt much better after yesterday’s relaxing afternoon and a good night’s sleep. He could see that his teammates felt the same. Touko was talking with a grinning Rika, Kogure’s gremlin smirk seemed to have transformed into a genuine smile, and Fubuki looked happy. Well, happier.

“Okay!” Endou said determinedly. “Today, we will find Gouenji!”

There were a few cheers from the first-years.

“Coach Hitomiko hasn’t located him yet, so it’s up to us!” Endou continued, fired up. “We’re going to split up and search the city. Ask around for mentions of the flame striker.”

Fudou inwardly groaned at the simplistic plan, but the others were nodding. Except Kidou, who looked two seconds away from facepalming. It was nice to have someone who shared gamemaker problems, even if said person still refused to talk to him.

“We will succeed!” Endou yelled. Fudou did a double take – was that  _fire_  in his eyes? He carefully edged away from the goalkeeper.

“All right, start searching!” Endou finished, before joining up with Kidou and heading east. To Fudou’s disappointment, Tachimukai joined them, trailing after the two like a lost puppy. He was probably in awe of Gouenji’s skills after hearing all the stories – personally, Fudou was in awe how a simple  _hissatsu_  could be embellished so much.

 _Let him go_ , Fudou thought irritably,  _maybe then he’ll start bothering Gouenji instead of me._

He turned resolutely and headed in the opposite direction, alone, ignoring the pang of loneliness. He avoided Rika and Touko, who were heading in a similar direction, and went straight towards the city. It was unlikely Gouenji was loafing around on a surfboard, unless he followed the same ‘training’ as Raimon.

And it was far easier to search for that head of spiky hair among people who looked a lot more conservative. As conservative as possible, given that this was Okinawa.

There was a flash of red, spiky hair. Fudou twisted and stared into the dark alley. He was certain that something had moved there. Gouenji had blond hair… but he could’ve dyed it.

Fudou thought of another player with spiky red hair and shivered. Fat lot of good associating with  _him_  had done him. He continued walking, carefully not looking into the alleys. If it was Gouenji, he could bloody well come out of the dark and talk. Fudou was wearing the Raimon Eleven tracksuit, after all.

And if it wasn’t Gouenji…

Fudou shuddered and began walking a little faster.

* * *

“So, do you know anything about the flame striker?” Endou asked sheepishly. Hijikata was  _huge_  and terrifying when he was protecting his siblings. Endou really wanted to get out of here, but he needed to ask about Gouenji first.

Gouenji, who he’d worked so hard to befriend the first time around.

“A flame striker,” Hijikata said thoughtfully. “I’ve heard the rumors, of course…” He paused and looked at Endou critically. “Why are you searching for him?”

“We believe he might be a friend,” Kidou said coolly.

“I  _know_  it’s him,” Endou said, determined. “He’s one of my friends and I don’t leave anyone behind!”

Hijikata considered them a moment more – Kidou, still in the ridiculous cape, even in the noonday heat; Tachimukai, who smiled nervously but earnestly, and Endou, who was staring at him. It was kind of creepy, actually.  _Please know something_ , he seemed to be begging,  _anything_.

He nodded to himself, as if he’d made a decision. “Right, well some nights, when the moon’s dark, I’ve seen flames over the treetops.” Hijikata motioned at the spot behind him. “Nothing’s been burned, so it might be that flame striker of yours.”

Endou stared at him incredulously, his mouth widening into a disbelieving smile.  _It couldn’t be… after all this time… Gouenji._

“Thank you so much!” he blurted out, bowing so low his head almost hit his knees. “Thank you!”

It was a lead, finally.

Hijikata looked unnerved by Endou’s exuberance.

“You’re welcome…”

But Endou hardly waited to hear the rest of his sentence. He grabbed Tachimukai’s hand and ran toward the trees that Hijikata had pointed out, trusting Kidou would follow.

It would be Gouenji. It  _had_  to be.

Endou ran haphazardly through the trees, uncaring of the branches that tugged at his clothes. Tachimukai was panting – he was being dragged forward by Endou’s pull. Kidou was keeping pace a bit more sedately but Endou could see his excitement as well.

They broke into a large clearing. It was singed and showed unmistakable signs of recent use: the ground had been flattened and there was a large cross engraved in a tree. Endou quickly cleared the few steps left to reach the clearing and looked around, his heart beating frantically.

Kidou looked at Endou, then  _past_ him, his eyes widening behind his goggles. At that moment, he seemed frozen to the ground.

Endou spun around and stared. There, in the shadows, was his best friend.

Gouenji caught Endou’s gaze, and pulled off his orange hood. When he walked out of the darkness towards them, the light only illuminated his warm smile.

* * *

Fudou was getting unnerved. He kept seeing glimpses of his mysterious stalker. Red hair that stood at angles, burning yellow eyes, a cruel smirk.

He walked faster and faster, until the only sound he could hear was the pounding of his heart. He had come to a deserted area – the storefronts were boarded up and trash pooled in the gutters. He had walked further than he’d meant to.

There was a sharp sound behind him, like someone had kicked a can.

Slowly, Fudou turned.

There was a boy standing there. His dark red hair was spiked up at the ends, and yellow eyes were narrowed in a sneer. He was holding a football.

“Who are you?” Fudou asked coldly, trying not to gulp. “And why are you following me?”

“I should’ve known Gran wouldn’t have mentioned me,” the boy said and laughed. “It’s as if he’s trying to pretend I don’t exist.” Fudou’s heart thudded at the mention of Gran. The boy was a member of Aliea Academy.

“Too bad for him. He’s lost favor after the Shin Teikoku fiasco.” Fudou couldn’t keep his expression from changing, and the boy grinned. “I’m Burn, captain of master-rank team Prominence.”

 _Another_  master-rank team. Fudou was beginning to understand how Raimon felt.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Fudou Akio,” Burn said. But Fudou didn’t miss the way his eyes narrowed.

* * *

Endou was a ball of energy all the way back to the caravan. The two best friends had been talking nonstop ever since their reunion in the forest, with Kidou chiming in every so often. And though Tachimukai was in awe at just being in the presence of the legendary striker… who was he kidding. He felt a little bit left out.

But of course, he held nothing against the other two. The three of them had been playing together for much longer than he had with them. There must have been many things to catch up on. And he was learning so much from just hanging around them. After hearing Hijikata talk about the flame striker, and seeing firsthand the impact of his strength in the forest clearing, he was already looking forward to taking Gouenji’s shots.

“That’s right, Gouenji-san,” he said. “What have you been doing since you left the caravan? Training?”

“Yep,” Gouenji said, stretching his arms out in front of him. “When I could, anyway. For a while, I had to lay low.”

“Was it because of Aliea Academy?” Endou asked. Barring the dark period right after Kazemaru and Kurimatsu left, Tachimukai had only ever heard his captain sound so serious once before.

Gouenji’s shoulders hitched up, then slumped. “Yes,” he said after a short silence in which Tachimukai felt very out-of-place. “For a while, they had my sister. But the detective got her back. You guys came right after, actually.”

“We would have come sooner had we known,” Kidou said gravely.

“Don’t worry about it.” Gouenji smirked. “There were quite a few of Aliea tailing me at the start, but they thinned out pretty quickly. Detective Onigawara thinks they got distracted by something.”

“Still, targeting Yuka-chan again?” Endou said, hands tightly gripped into fists now. “We have to stop Aliea Academy from doing any more things like this. We have to stop them, period.”

“Definitely. I’m glad the worst didn’t happen. Anyway, how’s the team doing? Got a few new arrivals?”

“Yes, we have quite a few new teammates,” Kidou said. It was impossible for Tachimukai to distinguish his expressions behind his goggles, but clearly Gouenji knew him better.

“What’s up with them?” he asked. “Are they having trouble fitting with the rest of the team?”

One side of Kidou’s mouth turned up in a rueful smile.

“You could definitely say that.”

* * *

It was simple, really. A one-on-one challenge – they had to get the ball past the other and hit the wall marked by a cross.

Fudou catalogued Burn’s smirk. This wasn’t an ordinary challenge.

“Well, Fudou?” Burn bared his teeth. “Are you going to start any time soon?”

Fudou glared and dribbled forward. He reached Burn and feinted left, then moved to the right. Basics.

Burn fell for the feint right according to plan. But he recovered so quickly that Fudou was caught by surprise, nearly tripping. Taking advantage of his stumble, Burn stole the ball easily.

“If that’s all the power that Gran’s little project has, no wonder you failed against Raimon,” Burn sneered.

“Shin Teikoku  _tied_  against Raimon,” Fudou spat back. He attacked again, managing to brush the side of the ball before Burn spun away from him.

“That’s all you got?” Burn taunted.

Fudou attacked, trying to get the ball away from Burn. But it wasn’t working – none of his plays were working. Burn was simply too  _fast_. It didn’t matter what tricks Fudou used. Even if he managed to get his feet on the ball, Burn would just spin faster than he could see and knock the ball from his feet. And when the Aliea captain moved, Fudou felt a strange rush of heat.

Aliea Academy was composed of humans. The alien façade was just tricks. But the heat certainly felt real enough that he kept his distance, not wanting to be burned.

Fudou realized that the Aliea captain was toying with him when Burn began bouncing the ball on his knee, still managing to avoid Fudou’s increasingly desperate swipes at it. “I expected you to be better,” he said nonchalantly. “I wonder, what did Gran see in you?”

Burn struck then. As Fudou lunged towards the ball, trying to tire him out, Burn smoothly fell backwards. With a small, almost imperceptible movement, he sent the ball behind him, over his own head, and caught it with his other leg. Fudou’s leg met air and he tumbled backwards with the excess momentum. When he hit the ground, face-first, Burn burst out in mocking laughter.

Fudou stood back up and glared at him. He was starting to reach his limit, risk of being singed be damned. “Are you playing or talking?” he hissed.

Burn gave him only a glance at that, and Fudou saw red. Stalking forward again, he swept down into a tackle. “Killer Slide!” he yelled, striking for Burn’s foot with the intent to break it.

Burn avoided him easily, leaving him sprawled in the dirt as he flipped in midair. The half-second was enough for him to shoot. The ball bounced off the cross, leaving a coal-black imprint on the wall.

He landed on his feet next to Fudou and shook his head. “No wonder you all lost to Gran. If they had to recruit the likes of you, the rest of Raimon probably aren’t much better than this. This won’t even be a challenge.”

He walked away holding the ball, which was still smoking. Fudou was left, still sprawled on the ground, with the growing, horrifying realization that he was incredibly outclassed.

* * *

Slowly, Fudou stood up. He took his own sweet time returning to the Inazuma caravan. Given the heat surrounding Burn and the scorch marks on the wall, he was 99% sure that the flame striker rumors in Okinawa had been referring to him. No point in hurrying back just to disappoint Raimon.

He constantly replayed the match in his mind as he walked. He examined every angle, every move, every chance he could have taken to gain an advantage over his opponent.

The results of his analysis did not please him.

Burn had performed better than Fudou, as he had been, in every way.

He didn’t have too much time to dwell on it as the caravan was a flurry of activity when he arrived. In contrast to the cool morning, the afternoon was hot, almost stuffy. Fudou put the pieces together and his mood worsened.

He cornered Tachimukai amidst all the chaos.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Fudou-san!” Tachimukai exclaimed when he saw him. “You missed a lot! We just got challenged to a match by Aliea too! The opponent this time seems really pushy. We said our team wasn’t all here yet, but he threatened to destroy all of Okinawa if we didn’t play them immediately.”

Yeah, that sounded about right.

His displeasure must have shown on his face, because without missing a beat, Tachimukai asked, “What’s up? You not feeling well? Do you need to sit out the match?”

Were they still doing this? Epsilon Kai had been so long ago.

“No,” Fudou said darkly. “I’ll play.”

He strode into the caravan to get ready. As he scrabbled about in his bag for his uniform, his fingers closed around embroidered cloth. His temple charm, set aside yesterday to go surfing. And, well, look what not wearing it had got him into.

Fudou put it on along with his uniform.

When he rejoined Raimon, the rest of the team was already there. With an electric jolt of surprise, Fudou noted the new arrival. Gouenji had been here after all. No doubt, in different circumstances, the team would have still been swarming around him, but right now they were staring down the enemy.

Burn stood on the other side of the pitch, at the front of his team. Even from that distance, Fudou could make out his arrogant smirk.

“So this is the Raimon Eleven,” he said, appraising them with one sweeping glance.

Fudou felt his gaze linger on him, and put on his biggest sneer. Burn had humiliated him earlier, and now he wanted revenge.

“With a new arrival, too,” Burn continued. If a lack of acknowledgment from the player in question bothered Burn, he didn’t show it. “Well then! Shall we?” he continued, pointing at Endou. “Prominence are going to beat you into the ground!”


	6. Chapter 6

The field that Burn had chosen was the Oumihara Junior High pitch, which was pretty fitting, all things considered. Of course, this also meant that the Oumihara football team caught wind of what was going on and appeared with practically half the population of Okinawa in tow.

Low-key, this city was not.

As expected, Gouenji had taken Rika's place on the starting lineup. But he wasn't the only new arrival. Tsunami had muscled in onto the Raimon team during the preparation period. Somehow, he managed to become one of the starting players, replacing Kogure's spot in the formation. Well, once Fudou registered that fact he tucked it deep into a little-used corner of his mind. He doubted he would be working with Tsunami much, being on the other side of the field. As if Kidou would even  _dream_  of using him in any of his plays in the first place.

His partnership with Kidou was the problem. Well, "partnership" was a pretty optimistic term for what they currently had. In an ideal world (and probably what Coach Hitomiko had also intended), they would have combined their strategic skills to lead the Raimon caravan to victory. An ideal world being one where Fudou didn't break Kageyama out of jail and press-gang Kidou's old teammates into joining Shin Teikoku shortly before convincing them to ruin their bodies to win.

As it was now, Kidou was just doing whatever he had done for Raimon since the start of the fight against Aliea. And Fudou? Well, he was a loose cannon on Raimon's right flank.

Prominence won the coin toss, and with the whistle, Burn kicked the ball back to the other forward, a boy with a lazy gaze whose bandana barely held back his wild hair. Prominence should have sent him to do the reconnaissance work. He blended in much better in Okinawa than Burn did, that was for sure.

Fudou dug his heels into the ground, ready to spring off to wherever the ball would advance. Sure enough, once the two wingers caught up to Burn and Bandana Boy, they passed the ball among each other, advancing steadily. Fudou ran back with them, keeping an eye out for a moment where he could strike.

Burn had been right about one thing, at least. Individually, Raimon really was no match for Prominence. Maybe not even collectively, either.

But like Fudou would let that stop him.

* * *

The ball was tearing through Raimon's left flank quickly, though that wasn't surprising. As Bandana Boy had advanced ahead with Burn, Fudou found himself facing a white-haired kid. A dark smirk crept on his face – the  _alien_  forwards sure looked incredibly  _human_.

A lapse in his concentration, and suddenly that kid was bringing the ball up. Despite the adrenaline running through Fudou's veins, it was all he could do just to keep up with him.

Something pulsed and his heart rate sped up.

Suddenly, he was keeping pace with the Prominence midfielder quite easily. He couldn't explain it, but just looking at the kid's eyes gave him an incredibly familiar feeling. Whether it was from his time at Shin Teikoku, before, or beyond, Fudou understood people like him. And that meant that he could beat him.

Just at the moment his mark made his decision, or perhaps even before that, Fudou saw the pass he was going to make. To Burn, of course, a pass arcing across the field and cutting through Raimon's scattered midfield to deliver to Prominence's strongest forward. Just when he drew back his leg to make the pass, Fudou fell back.

And rushed directly into the passing lane.

His foot made contact with the ball and he trapped it with relish. The mood on the pitch shifted. The white-haired kid stumbled. Fudou spun away and came face-to-face with Burn.

He almost faltered, his eyes skipping back to the place he'd seen him last, all the way on the left flank. Burn grinned, the same way he'd grinned before his shot left scorch marks on metal.

"Fudou!"

A shout came down from further upfield, and Fudou cursed. Trust Kidou-kun to respond without fail to every situation. He sent the ball flying past Burn before the Aliea captain could even make a move.

Burn didn't bother chasing the ball. He didn't even  _look_  in Kidou's direction. Instead, he stuck close to Fudou and laughed.

"Interesting! I see you've been hiding some brains under that tattoo of yours, Fudou."

Fudou's lip began to curl upwards, but he immediately he regretted letting Burn see that he'd provoked a reaction. "That isn't the half of what I can do."

Burn's grin only grew wider. "Is that so?" he said, his voice dropping so low Fudou could barely hear him. "Well, show me just how much you  _can_  do then!"

Prominence was bringing the ball up again, having wrested it from Kidou, and the Bandana Guy passed it to Burn.

Fudou gritted his teeth and lunged forward, aiming to intercept the ball. But Burn flew past him, the heat so intense that Fudou stumbled back, afraid of getting burned.

Burn jumped in midair, trapping the ball easily. He made sure to leer at Fudou before sending it down the left flank, where the white-haired kid was waiting. The kid shot, but Tsunami jumped in front of him, throwing the ball off course. Touko's quick thinking sent the ball straight to Gouenji and Raimon started up the field again.

Prominence, however, was going to make them pay for every step. Burn stood in front of Fudou, barring his way as the defense began to engage Gouenji. The midfield rushed up and pushed the ball closer towards the goal.

Everyone was tussling for the ball in front of the goal. In the chaos, the ball slipped out of bounds and the whistle blew.

Burn raised his hands up high and clapped.

"Nepper, switch sides. I'll be marking Fudou Akio- _sama_."

Burning cold washed through Fudou's veins, but he grit his teeth. What did it matter who was marking him? As long as he took his opponents down, and Raimon won, they would be able to wash their hands of Prominence and take one Aliea Academy master rank team off their list.

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

Even with Burn switching sides to engage Fudou directly, the left flank would have crumbled without resistance if Kidou wasn't there to slow Prominence down. And with him there, the right flank was empty for Burn to rush Fudou down and block any chances of them diverting the offense. Both sides of the field were an equally viable option for Prominence to attack right now. Raimon's flanks were equally strong… or, one could say, equally weak.

_Weak?_

Raimon was not a weak team.

And Fudou would be damned if he let  _anyone_  call him a weak player ever again.

"What's the matter, Fudou?" Burn grinned, a razor-sharp grin showcasing each and every one of his teeth. "Feeling a bit tired? Alone? Your whole team's abandoned you."

His heart pulsed again.

Fudou saw the empty field through fury-hazed eyes and jerked his head back to face Burn. "No," he said, trying to cut with his words, "no, they know that I'm more than enough to deal with you."

 _More than enough_ … a little voice whispered in the back of his head,  _more than powerful enough. They've deserted you. Everyone's deserted you._

"Captain!" Nepper called out, as a high pass arched over the field. Burn turned and received the ball easily. But Fudou stood in his path.

 _Power, power,_ power!

He lunged forward.

"Killer Slide!"

This time, it connected, and the ball spun out of Burn's grasp. It rolled towards the left flank, where Touko trapped it. Fudou got to his feet quickly, not wanting to leave any more holes for the Prominence captain to attack.

But Burn was just staring at him, shocked.

A vicious thrill of pleasure ran through Fudou. "I told you I was more than enough," he taunted.

"No." Burn shook his head, eyes still wide. "No one gets  _that_  good that fast. I played against you. You weren't this fast before. It's impossible…"

As the shouts on the Raimon side increased, Fudou turned away from Burn. With a jolt, he realized that the ball had crossed the halfway line into Raimon's half of the field. And, as Raimon overpowered the Prominence offense and stole the ball back, he realized something else.

The ball had reached the right flank maybe two, three times. But Burn was Prominence's best forward.

The conclusion was obvious: Fudou was bait.

Because if Gran and Desarm had been indicative of Aliea's priorities, Burn should have been paying more attention to Gouenji. But instead, here he was, duking it out with Fudou, the disgraced former captain of Shin Teikoku Academy. And with Kidou in the middle to stop any funny business… separating the Prominence captain from his offense was undeniably an effective strategy.

Well. Fudou had been complaining that Kidou didn't use him in his plays. Guess he owed him a (mental) apology.

Prominence advanced again, this time getting close enough to risk a shot. Bandana Boy (Nepper, was it?) aimed at the goal and kicked. But before it reached the goalmouth, Fudou already knew it wouldn't go in. Endou practiced against much stronger shots on a regular basis.  _This_  flame wouldn't burn him.

"Fist of Justice G2!"

Endou's cry could be heard clearly even though they were on the other side of the field. And though Burn probably didn't notice, not having gone through the impromptu surfing training, Fudou could appreciate Endou's form enough for the both of them. Endou's stance, the angle of his hips and feet, the straight line running from his right fist to his left foot… it was picture-perfect.

No… it was beyond perfect. Endou had unconsciously improved the technique.

The ball rebounded off Endou's fist and headed straight for Kidou's feet. Raimon's counterattack began.

Burn was still slack-jawed. The feeling of satisfaction was very, very pleasing.

"Maybe you shouldn't have underestimated us," Fudou said. "Because now it's  _my_  turn to block  _you_." His heart raced again, giving him an extra burst of speed.

Burn's eyes flashed. There was a sudden rush of heat that sent Fudou's mohawk flying back until it was almost pressed to his scalp, but he ignored it and kept running beside Burn.

"Gran wouldn't have dared," Burn said darkly, narrowing his eyes. "Not the golden boy. He wouldn't have." Fudou felt the dark rush of heat before seeing the flare and fell back, bracing himself –

But before Burn could complete his attack, there was the now-familiar, irritating flash of bright light.

* * *

"Gran," Burn spat out the moment the white fog cleared. "You have no right to interrupt this match!"

"And you had no right to schedule it," Gran replied, standing in the middle of the field in what Fudou presumed was his Aliea uniform. Ichinose, who was closest to him, began to inch away.

"I have everyright!" Burn snarled, stalking towards Gran. "You're not the only one who can do whatever they want here."

Gran narrowed his eyes. "You –"

"Shut up, Gran," Burn cut him off. "You're not the favorite anymore, so stop acting like you still are."

"You're losing this match," Gran finished, eyeing the scoreboard, which was still 0-0.

"It's a  _tie_. And it's not even halftime," Burn retorted. "Don't forget they've gained a striker and a midfielder since they faced you."

Gran's eyes flickered to Fudou, who took an involuntary step back. The anger boiling in Gran's eyes was twice as terrifying as all of Prominence put together.

Burn was either clueless or foolish. "Shall I reveal  _your_  mistakes, Gran?" he spat out with a smirk. "Your little… project?"

Gran's expression did not change, and he remained still. "You don't know anything about my project," he said coolly.

"Really?" Burn asked, mock-frowning. "Because I think I'm beginning to figure it out. Your sudden loss of favor. Your talk on humans joining Aliea. The pieces are adding up, Gran."

"This match is called off," Gran said, his expression inscrutable. "And you  _will_  obey."

"Or what?" Burn asked, low and deadly, walking up to him until he stood face-to-face with the Gaia captain. "What will you do?"

"Or I'll bring Gaia and we'll see which team is truly stronger," Gran hissed. "We beat Raimon 19-0. Do you really want to face  _me_?" The temperature dropped, and everyone in the stadium held their breath for Burn's response.

Burn glared, heating up the air between the two captains until it started to shimmer. But he stepped back.

"This isn't over, Gran," he said, narrowing his eyes, and turned to Endou. "We'll be back for a rematch." He stalked back towards his team as Gran watched. Just before he reached them, the bright light flared again, and all of Aliea vanished.

* * *

Fudou had thought that the rest of the team would discuss and generally be distracted by what had just happened, leaving him to slip off unnoticed. But, of course, things never worked out the way he wanted.

"How's your foot, Fudou-san?" Tachimukai had sidled up next to him before he realized he was even coming.

Fudou flexed his leg experimentally, then did a couple of lunges forward with nary a protest from his calf. To be honest, he had been so caught up in the match that he'd forgotten his leg had even been in pain. (Though, really,  _honestly_ , there had been no lasting damage. The fact that people were refusing to drop it was getting aggravating.)

"It's fine," he said. "Doesn't hurt at all."

"That's good," Tachimukai said, and Fudou grunted in response.

A somewhat awkward silence resulted. Fudou was in no hurry to break it, half too tired to care and half not knowing what he could say. Some generic slush like 'You played well'? He couldn't in all honesty say that.

He was just about to take his leave when the sound of clapping hands caught his attention.

Dammit.

It was Endou, looking happier than he'd ever seen him (though, given the circumstances of their first meeting and of his recruitment, that was hardly surprising). And next to him stood the reason why. Raimon's flame striker, in the flesh. But instead of Burn's overpowering inferno, Gouenji exuded a steadier warmth. Fudou only needed one glance at him to understand, albeit grudgingly, why no one seemed to harbor any ill will towards this guy despite him being such a prominent player in such a well-known team.

"Many of you have already met Gouenji." Endou's grin could power a generator. "But for those who haven't had a chance to talk to him yet, I'd like to officially introduce him to the team."

Gouenji nodded. Briefly, he exchanged glances and a small smile with both Ichinose and Kidou, then looked at the rest of the Raimon caravan.

"I'm Gouenji Shuuya. I play forward," he said. "It's a pleasure to meet you all."

The team murmured general greetings, though Fudou only nodded once. He did not, however, take his eyes off Gouenji.

"The team has changed a lot since I was last here," Gouenji continued. "I'm glad that it managed to find such skilled new members to fight against Aliea Academy."

He looked around at the new members of the caravan as he talked, nothing but friendly cooperation in his gaze. This was a natural-born leader if there was one. Seriously, surely having Endou, Kidou, and now this guy on the same team had to be overkill?

"Come on, Gouenji. No need to be so formal. We're all friends here, after all." Wait, was that  _Domon_  who just spoke? The guy talked so little that before now, Fudou hadn't really known what his voice sounded like.

"Just let him finish," Ichinose said. "This kind of stuff is important, after all."

Gouenji didn't speak, only nodded in response, though a warm smile did briefly flit onto his face.

"I hope we can keep getting stronger and defeat Aliea Academy once and for all," he said, eyes still roving around. Fudou felt Gouenji's gaze meet his and almost flinched.

He only didn't because he knew that Gouenji would keep moving his gaze around the team like before… except this time, he didn't.

"I look forward to working with you all," the striker finished.

And maybe it was just because of all the adrenaline from the game, but when Gouenji finished his impromptu speech, eyes still on him, there was an odd sense of anticipation twitching about in Fudou's stomach.

* * *

"You interfered in Prominence's match."

The voice was low and Gran fought the urge to cower away. After the failure of his project, the voice had become colder and colder – Gaia was no longer the favorite.

"Burn did not have the right," Gran said quietly. He had to tread carefully here.

"And neither did you, when you challenged Raimon under the name  _'Genesis'_ ," the voice replied sharply.

Gran wet his lips. "Father –"

"You've proven a disgrace," the voice continued over him. "You convinced me that Kageyama was the first step to recruiting humans." Gran winced at the clear differentiation. "But he sank into the sea, and took the precious Aliea with him."

"I didn't know," Gran said hesitantly and bit his lip. Even to his own ears, he sounded like a child.

"You cost me valuable resources," the voice said, rising in tone. "Burn has not. You will not interfere again."

"Father!" Gran looked up, shocked. "Burn's methods –"

"Are better than yours." The voice sounded disgusted. "You  _will_  not interfere. Do I make myself clear?"

Gran knelt on the cold floor, cheeks hot with jealousy and anger. He grit his teeth.

"Yes, Father."


	7. Chapter 7

After what felt like forever, Fudou  _finally_  ended the call. He hoped the scowl dragging his mouth down hadn't been obvious to his mother, but even if it had… he couldn't find it in himself to care much. She had been so  _overbearing_ , nagging him to play nice and eat right and to make sure to get eight hours of sleep a day.

He was hunting down terrorists and she was acting like he was off at summer camp. Well, he supposed. He'd never been to summer camp – those were expensive in Tokyo and besides, the back alleys had always been enough for a kid with a runaway dad and a working mom.

Until they hadn't. Fudou could still remember the sneering looks on his former friends' faces as they'd turned and abandoned him.

' _Nothing can be done without power.'_

Fudou snapped the cell phone shut with more force than required and winced – the resulting crack had echoed in the deserted parking lot. They were about a day's journey out of Okinawa, heading back to Tokyo. Hitomiko had some new information or Raimon wanted to go home or…or Fudou had just stopped caring.

He didn't understand why Raimon could still smile, could still have fun, could still act like this was anything more than a war that they were losing. He'd heard the grisly war stories: Gaia had  _crushed_  the Inazuma Caravan. Two members had left, Fubuki's switch had tripped (okay, he knew he had some issue that was connected with his weird aura changes, but whatever it was had reduced him to a zombie on the field), and Endou – Endou, the annoying, perpetually cheerful captain – had sat silently for a day in pouring rain.

Fudou had never underestimated Gran, but he'd always thought that he, out of all the Aliea members, possessed the closest thing to a heart. It was easy to see his mistake – Gran was the most human out of all of them, but that wasn't saying much. The brief glimpse of Gazel they'd got was of an emotionless robot and Fudou had seen Burn's rage firsthand enough that he never wanted to see him again.

Prominence may not have been as strong as Gaia, but Fudou had no illusions about who was going to win that match. Even without Burn, Prominence had cracked their defense like an egg and Endou's Fist of Justice, while upgraded, had not yet withstood Burn's shots.

And there was still the unknown, and that wasn't including Diamond Dust. Fudou was prepared to bet that  _that_ wasn't the end of Aliea either.

It was impossible.

But it had also been impossible to block Emperor Penguin No. 1.

Fudou dribbled his ball out of the parking lot, heading for the park where Raimon had temporarily set up camp. The Inazuma Caravan worked best as a team – Kidou had blocked the shot before Endou got to it. Then it had been Pinky who had sacrificed himself (which Fudou didn't get. Sacrificing yourself was only good on defense? What  _hypocrites_ ) and stopped the shot.

It was power. Raimon was getting stronger all the time – Gemini Storm would be laughable opponents at this stage. But Fudou knew a little of Aliea's plans – back then, Gran had let slip a few things.

Gemini Storm and Epsilon had been influenced by the Aliea. The Genesis contenders hadn't.

But what if they  _had_? The ultimate human soldier. That was Gran's project.

Fudou grinned – sure, Kageyama was gone, the plan had failed. That didn't mean the idea was flawed.

Let Aliea come at them. If power was what could stop them – well, he had that in spades.

* * *

The closer they got to Tokyo, the more and more strung up he felt.

It wasn't anything, of course, just fatigue. That, or plain coincidence. Unlike most of the others, he didn't have anything to look forward to coming back to. He'd put all that behind him, of course, back when they'd moved for the first time. That had been a long time ago.

So it was pretty frustrating how it kept popping up in his mind, niggling at him with greater and greater frequency.

If the rest of the Inazuma Caravan noticed, they didn't say anything. Kidou was not speaking to him as usual. Tachimukai and he were friendly enough. They still trained together occasionally, but the goalie spent a lot more time with Gouenji now as well. (Fudou wasn't jealous… really.) The rest of the Caravan had noticeably softened their stance on him (Ichinose wasn't giving him suspicious side-eyes anymore), but they didn't really have much to say to each other and that was how Fudou liked it.

Unlike him, though, the others were noticeably excited about the prospect of going to Tokyo. Rika was the most vocal about it, of course, already bringing up the subject of meeting her darling's parents at practically every other breath. Fudou kept his opinions on that to himself. Many of the others were looking forward to seeing their families again.

Fudou kept his opinions on that to himself as well.

So imagine his surprise when Gouenji invited him to stay over for the night.

For the first few seconds after Gouenji stopped talking, Fudou stared at him, nonplussed. Then he wiped that deer-in-the-headlights look off his face. (Judging by Gouenji's smirk, it was too late. Dammit.)

"Well?" Gouenji said, after the silence stretched on long enough to become awkward.

Fudou honestly couldn't give him an answer. At that moment, his dominant emotion was  _confused_. (Which was, to be fair, a nice enough break from  _annoyed_.) Why was Gouenji even talking to him in the first place? He'd seen him with Fubuki quite a bit, chatting about something or another, but had always assumed it was some sort of striker-bonding or fire-and-ice dichotomy thing drawing them together. And of course, Gouenji had that sort of reliable team savior aura about him.

So why was  _he_  offering Fudou hospitality? He didn't need to be monitored, surely? It wasn't like he was the unstable one with dead twin issues.

"I've asked a couple of the others who aren't from here to come, as well," Gouenji continued. "I figure it'll help save some of Coach Kira's money as well if I put you up for the time we spend here. Tokyo's expensive after all, and we have the space. Fubuki, Kogure, and Tsunami are up for it. Tachimukai too."

Fudou glanced at Gouenji suspiciously. Surely he wasn't thinking that Fudou was starved for company or something? He had known that something was up since the day Gouenji introduced himself to the team, when they had shared that weird look, but this was really too much.

Still, the alternative was a hotel room with only Coach Kira as company… or worse, a sleeping bag in the Inazuma Caravan.

So Fudou's choice was already made.

* * *

Following his conversation with Gouenji, Fudou had immediately deduced that the former was loaded. After all, who really had houses big enough in  _Tokyo_ to have space for 5 guests? Especially a family with multiple children? (He was pretty sure Gouenji's sister was the entire reason he had been in that mess that made him leave the team.) Plus, wasn't his dad a doctor or something?

Unfortunately, while larger than the average Tokyo house (and also the Fudou family's extremely modest Ehime terrace hole), the Gouenji ʻmansion' was really just an above-average semi-detached house.

"It pales to Kidou's," Gouenji said, when he caught him scrutinizing the exterior of the house, trying to figure out where the extra space for them was, and Fudou drew back again, pretending he hadn't been interested.

"Don't most things?" he answered, not really in the mood to filter his words. Kidou-kun, of course, what should he have expected? Sure, he was a Raimon player now, but he had also been the captain of Teikoku Academy. And Teikoku Academy only accepted the best within its ranks.

"Why isn't Kidou-kun offering his place out, then?" he said out loud. "Afraid we'll dirty it with our commoner shoes?"

Gouenji gave him a series of looks that eventually settled on something decidedly strange. Fudou couldn't decipher the end point – was he sorry? Abashed? Uncomfortable? The small amount of time he spent thinking further along those lines was enough to figure that any more of that would probably ruin one of the few remaining positive Inazuma Caravan relationships he had left, so he immediately nipped that effort in the bud. What would Gouenji care about the problems Kidou and he had with each other, anyway?

"Kidou's got his own circumstances," Gouenji replied, as if that explained anything. "Well, anyway, sorry my place isn't that big. You'll have to share rooms."

Fudou should really have picked the hotel, shouldn't he?

* * *

Upon entering the Gouenji household, they were immediately introduced to the housekeeper, Fuku-san, and Gouenji's (okay, rather cute) little sister Yuuka-chan. It was already dark, but Mr. Gouenji was apparently still off at work. And, of course, Fudou knew better than to ask about Mrs. Gouenji.

While Fuku-san prepared dinner, the boys sans Fudou kept up a steady stream of chatter with Yuuka as she took them to their rooms. Including Gouenji's room, there were two empty rooms in the house. Fuku-san had already gone ahead and prepared three beds in each room.

"I was thinking we'd split it up by grade," Gouenji said. "So the first-years can bunk with Tsunami in the spare room, and you two can share my room with me."

"I'll ride that beat!" Tsunami gave them all a thumbs up and a dazzling grin. "Though, to be honest, I completely forgot you guys are all in different years to me…"

It seemed that even here, Fudou couldn't escape the obstinate cheerfulness that had seemingly permeated all parts of the Inazuma Caravan. He shrugged to indicate his acquiescence, hoping they'd get this over with soon so they could eat and sleep. Glancing around, he caught Fubuki's gaze. It would almost have qualified as making eye contact if the boy hadn't flinched and immediately looked away.

And Fudou thought that  _he_  had problems.

Dinner came and went without Mr. Gouenji ever showing himself. From how the Gouenji siblings acted, this seemed to be pretty normal. Well, working parents coming home late was something he was used to. Fudou just hadn't expected it to happen to the children of rich people either.

Fuku-san served up a traditional-style three-course meal. In addition to soft fluffy rice, tart pickles, and fresh fruit, each boy had a whole mackerel which had been lightly sprinkled with salt and grilled until the skin was singed golden (Yuuka had a small plate of assorted  _kamaboko_ ). It was one of the few times Fudou could remember himself actually savoring the food instead of just consuming it. He could probably count the amount of times that had ever happened with the fingers on both hands. (Only one hand if you only counted the times before the Inazuma Caravan.)

Fuku-san had not shied on portion size, either, but the last bite came much too quickly. And he wasn't the only one who cleaned his plate. Kogure had mopped everything up too (even down to the rice – actually, he'd never seen him leave food unfinished, now that he thought about it), and Tsunami was even asking for seconds. Only Fubuki had barely touched his food. Fudou watched as he offered his mackerel to Tsunami, half-wishing he could have some of it as well… but fat chance of that happening.

They retired to their respective rooms to rest soon after. While first impressions had been unimpressive, the rooms themselves really weren't bad. The best part about them was that they each had their own bathroom. The not-so-best part about that was, well… it wasn't like he was going to let his host shower after him. (There was a difference between  _rude_  and  _impolite_.) And while Fudou was tired, Fubuki looked  _exhausted_. So Fudou ended up having to wait for the last bathroom slot, flipping through random things on the fancy phone the government had given him and mulling over plays and tactics as he waited.

When Gouenji finally emerged, Fudou was in there in seconds. The clothes and the temple charm came off and finally, he washed off all the grime all that travelling had got on him. The constant pressure of Gouenji's shower was oddly comforting, like it was blasting all his tension away.

Gouenji's bathroom also had a bathtub, and while Fudou hesitated for a moment, he dismissed his hesitation in the next. A warm bath sounded like the perfect thing to get him relaxed, and god knows that was something he was needing more and more lately. And since he was going to be cleaning up anyway, why rush it? But the fifteen minutes he had originally intended became twenty, then twenty-five, then half an hour. When he finally hauled himself out of the water, his muscles felt like heavy putty, but he was warm, limber, and content.

He opened the door to see the lights already all out. No surprises there. The dim light from the bathroom spilled into the room, and Fudou was just leaning back in to switch it off when he paused.

Fubuki shifted at that moment, turning just enough that the light illuminated his pale face. His teeth were clenched; his brows knitted. He was shivering.

For a few seconds, Fudou was frozen. He cursed himself for having witnessed this. Then, he knelt down and roughly shook Fubuki's shoulder.

Fubuki jerked up, and Fudou shrank back. People were unpredictable after nightmares. He returned to the bathroom to finish cleaning up, tossing his clothes into the laundry basket. When he was done, he headed for the unclaimed  _futon_  at the end of the room, ready to call it a night.

Fubuki was sitting up. Unsure of what to expect, Fudou avoided his gaze.

"Thanks," Fubuki muttered, so quietly that his one word was swallowed by the surrounding air in an instant.

Fudou shrugged, but didn't turn to face him. To the wall, he said, "It was nothing."

* * *

At least breakfast the next day wasn't a solemn affair. While Fubuki was quiet, and Gouenji was as stolid as ever, Tsunami and Kogure were yabbering away, with constant cheerful interjections from Tachimukai. Guess that room had done a much better job of team bonding than Fudou's. Or maybe it was because they were usually in the same parts of the football field as well. Eh, whatever.

While the Caravan didn't shirk on catering, Gouenji's house was definitely a step up from that, and talking to his mum had only reminded Fudou of what was waiting for him once this was all over. It wasn't like he was going to lose to Aliea on purpose, but… a little more of this life wouldn't be so bad.

"Endou and I are thinking of going to visit the Inazuma Hospital later this morning," Gouenji said just as Fudou took a big bite of toast. "Would anyone like to join us?"

Good thing his mouth was still firmly clamped around the toast, because if Fudou had been chewing or swallowing he would probably have snorted and then promptly needed to go to the hospital himself.

He shrugged.  _No thank you very much_.

Shin Teikoku hadn't been that long ago, and he could still remember the tough guy with pink hair he'd tackled a few times. He knew his tackles had been especially rough, so the reason for the tough guy's absence from the Inazuma Caravan was no mystery to him. Fudou had no intention of seeing him anytime soon. Shin Teikoku hadn't been that long ago.

"I'll pass," Tsunami said, somehow mollifying that refusal with a chipper grin. "Think I'd just get in the way, to be honest. Kogure'n'I were thinking of heading downtown. See the sights, you know."

"I'll visit," Fubuki said, looking up and giving Gouenji a brief smile. Fudou had seen that smile many times before, at home. But he could read the mood. He wasn't about to call unwanted attention to Fubuki.

"I think I'll train today," Tachimukai said. His apologetic smile and the slight tilt of his head to the side wouldn't have drawn a second glance from Fudou if it weren't for the brief glance the boy had set on him milliseconds earlier. "It's been a while and I don't want to get rusty… want to come with, Fudou-san?"

Fudou shrugged again, but nodded. He'd been intending to do some training himself in this downtime. And two heads (or rather, two feet and two hands) were better than one.

* * *

"How was your night, Fudou-san?"

Fudou tried to keep his expression neutral as he glanced sideways at Tachimukai. Had he actually  _chirped_  that? What had Tsunami fed him? Because it had to be his fault somehow that Tachimukai was so cheerful.

He shrugged. He couldn't exactly say that he hadn't slept well, kept up by Fubuki's constant tossing and turning.

"The  _f_ _uton_  was better than a sleeping bag," was what he eventually settled for. "You seem like you had a good one."

Tachimukai grinned, and launched into a monologue in all but name. It hit Fudou that he had never seen Tachimukai this open and expressive before. Hanging out with people other than him was probably doing the younger boy good.

Apparently, unlike their room, the first-years and third-year had had a proper bonding session the previous night. Tsunami had told them all about life in Okinawa (which definitely explained why all three of them had been radiating sunshine this morning, Fudou swore that place was a drug), and Kogure and Tachimukai had told him what to expect playing defense for the Raimon Caravan.

"He doesn't really need much introduction to that," Fudou said to that, deadpan. Tsunami wasn't one for following the game plan. He didn't envy Kidou for having to factor his unpredictability into their strategies at all.

"Yeah, that's what we told him," Tachimukai said, waving his hands around. "He was amazing that match we played against Prominence! It was like he'd played with us for much longer."

Fudou smirked. He had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from scoffing out loud. Yes, yes, that was what he had meant, of course.

They reached a clearing that looked sparse enough for practice, with two trees standing at about the right distance from each other to use as goalposts. Fudou held out a hand for the ball.

Tachimukai moved to hand it over, then checked himself. He started and stopped this movement several more times. After the third time, Fudou stopped hiding his impatience. This was getting strange.

"Fudou-san," Tachimukai eventually said, "it might not be any of my business, but I just wanted to ask…"

"Wanted to ask what?" Fudou bit back.

"Are you okay?"

"What?" Fudou raised an eyebrow. It had been days since he used Emperor Penguin No. 1, and he felt fine. If Tachimukai was still harping on about that…

"I… you just… I just wanted to know if you're okay," Tachimukai said, tripping over his words.

"I'm fine, Tachimukai," Fudou said exasperatedly, and held his hand out for the ball. But Tachimukai still didn't give it over, and continued to stare at Fudou with a concerned expression.

"I just… you haven't been acting like yourself lately, Fudou-san." Tachimukai bit his lip and looked at Fudou as if he'd understand Tachimukai's vague statement.

Fudou just stared back. He was starting to get annoyed – this kid knew him for what? A week? And he was already getting all judgmental over Fudou's attitude.

Fudou opened his mouth to tell him to mind his own business when his leg vibrated. Confused, Fudou looked down and realised that the phone in his pocket was vibrating. It was a call from the Inazuma Caravan.

He answered the call and brought the phone to his ear.

"Yes?"

"Fudou-kun?" It was Otonashi Haruna. "You've got to come to the caravan quickly. Something's happened!"


	8. Chapter 8

Tachimukai and Fudou were the last to arrive – Tachimukai puffing, cheeks red with a football under his hand, while Fudou strolled nonchalantly next to him, not even looking winded.

Kidou turned away from them – he didn't want to look at Fudou any longer than necessary. Kidou still couldn't puzzle out how he felt about the gamemaker – on one hand, he remembered the crazy glint in Fudou's eyes as he stood there and watched Sakuma fall. On the other, there was this passive-aggressively silent midfielder who had used a sacrificial technique and then acted as if it was the normal thing to do.

So very confusing.

Kidou wanted to hate him, he did. He wanted to loathe Fudou with every fiber of his being, the same way he'd loathed him before he joined the team. And it had been easy to hate the sneering, arrogant captain of Shin Teikoku. Kidou hated Kageyama and Zeus and Fudou had just been another name on the list.

Until Hitomiko took them to Ehime and added Fudou to the team. Kidou had tried to prepare himself to face the cutting sneers that Fudou employed only too well. Instead, he was faced with Fudou as he must've been before Kageyama recruited him. Quiet, isolated.

And angry. Very, very angry.

Kidou couldn't figure out whether to hate him or pity him, because he had been used like Fudou once and he knew the destruction Kageyama wreaked. But the middle of Aliea matches wasn't the place to figure out his feelings and Kidou had locked them away in a box, refusing to interact with Fudou unless it was necessary.

But, speaking of the destruction Kageyama left…

Kidou turned back to the center of the loose circle Raimon had formed just as Hitomiko began speaking. "As you all know, the Diamond Dust match is tomorrow," Hitomiko said, silencing the confused whispers. There were looks of surprise on some faces, but not Fudou's. Obviously not – he was a gamemaker, he would've added the days up. "And I remind you, yet again, that everyone who can help us against Aliea is a teammate, even if they might not be a friend."

Kidou bit back his immediate reaction, his eyes once again finding Fudou as the others looked at him. Fudou was clearly not a friend, but Kidou could work with him and that was enough.

But he already knew Fudou wasn't who Hitomiko was  _really_  talking about.

"Coach," Ichinose spoke up, wary, "did you add someone else to the team?" Kidou sometimes forgot that Ichinose was also a gamemaker and sharper than anyone really gave him credit for.

Hitomiko, who obviously had enough of being the bearer of bad news, turned towards Gouenji, who ignored her and looked straight at Kidou. Kidou's eyes narrowed under his goggles – Gouenji was fitting in rather well with this new team – and he turned pointedly to Endou. And surely that would be the end of the glance train. There was no way their captain would be cruel enough to turn to Fubuki, was there?

Endou flushed under the combined weight of the team's stares, but before he could speak up, a figure stepped out from behind the bus.

Red eyes scanned the faces of the Inazuma Caravan members – some confused, some shocked, and most angry – and a smile curved bloodless lips.

"Hello," Aphrodi said pleasantly. "I look forward to playing with you all."

* * *

To say that there was instant chaos would probably be an understatement. Fudou leaned against the wall of the caravan, a confused Tachimukai at his side, and watched the commotion unfold.

To say that Fudou was gleeful was probably another understatement.

"I'm confused," Tachimukai whispered, careful not to draw the attention of the three different groups all shouting at Hitomiko – Ichinose headed one, Domon the second, and Kabeyama the third. Ichinose was supported by an equally vociferous Domon and a vehement Touko while Rika tried to pacify him. Kabeyama and Megane were adding fuel to the fire every time the opportunity arose.

Hitomiko, however, remained silent, along with Gouenji and Kidou. Endou tried to intercede, but was hopelessly outnumbered. Kogure, Tsunami and Fubuki were watching with wide eyes. Aphrodi was also watching, but a smile played on his lips.

"Isn't that the captain of Zeus?" Tachimukai asked.

"Yes," Fudou replied, grinning. He'd wanted to see what Raimon's reaction had been to his recruitment, but this was almost as good. Actually, it was better. He may have recruited Sakuma and Genda from the hospital, but it was Zeus that had put them there.

"Didn't they…" Tachimukai trailed off as he tried to find the right words to encapsulate the disaster that Zeus had been.

"Take illegal drugs supplied by Kageyama and proceed to utterly destroy their opponents in the Football Frontier, nearly destroy Raimon and put a number of people in the hospital on their way?" Fudou offered, his grin getting wider. "Yes."

"I don't get it," Tachimukai frowned, wincing as a yelling Touko had to be restrained by Rika. "Why are you smiling?"

"Because if there's one person that Kidou-kun hates more than me," Fudou said, feeling the dark pulse of power thrum in his chest, "it's  _him_."

Unfortunately, before he could go get some snacks to watch what looked like an impending fistfight, Kidou intervened.

"Stop," Kidou said, and although it wasn't shouted, it had the effect of silencing everyone present. That was the kind of leadership Kidou had within Raimon – though it was one he rarely used.

"Aphrodi is playing forward," Kidou stated coolly, as if he wasn't standing two feet from the person that had put his entire team in the hospital while he watched helplessly. "Ichinose, you're back in midfield, replacing Tachimukai."

"Why should we accept a member of Zeus on our team?" Ichinose said slowly, as if he were fighting not to shout the words in Kidou's face.

"Because he's here to help," Gouenji said quietly, turning slightly so that Aphrodi could step forward.

"I know that I hurt a lot of people when I was part of Zeus," Aphrodi said, looking contrite. Fudou had to admire his acting skills, if nothing else. "I wanted power and I was willing to do anything, even drink the aqua of the gods to get it."

His eyes skipped over everyone present. "It was Raimon that opened my eyes to the truth. I've followed your battle with Aliea from the beginning and I wish to fight alongside you now."

Fudou blinked as Domon and Kabeyama nodded at his words. Aphrodi certainly was persuasive.

"How do we know we can trust you?" Ichinose asked, still suspicious.

"I know it's hard to believe, but I really have changed." Aphrodi turned back to Endou. "Endou-kun showed me that power is worthless when there is no strength." Fudou flinched at that, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kidou twitch. "I want to protect this country just as much as the rest of you do."

If that hadn't won over everyone else on the team Fudou would shave his head. And indeed, it worked. Ichinose and Touko calmed down and while Megane still shot suspicious looks at Aphrodi, no one took heed. In fact, Rika and Domon had already started talking to him, something about school and where he was practicing now that Aliea had destroyed almost everything.

Aphrodi's inclusion had certainly gone over much better than his own. The acceptance of Endou, Gouenji and Kidou probably had something to do with it.

"That… that went smoothly," Tachimukai said, looking a bit bewildered at the sudden change in the mood. He shot a side glance at Fudou, opened his mouth, turned a deep shade of red and shut his mouth again.

"He's always been a smooth talker," Fudou said dismissively, lying through his teeth. Tachimukai was going to ask why he hadn't been met with the same warm smiles and strategy discussions and Fudou didn't want to answer that. Didn't know  _how_  to answer that.

Aphrodi under the influence of the aqua of the godshad been arrogant and psychotic with delusions of grandeur. Fudou had been much less psychotic in Shin Teikoku, though he knew he'd been a lot more antagonistic.

Fudou ignored the little voice in his head that said that Aphrodi had given up the aqua of the gods a long time ago.

"Do you know him?" Tachimukai asked. The people around them were starting to drift back into their groups, discussing the impending Diamond Dust match. In the center, Kidou held court with Gouenji, Endou, Aphrodi and Ichinose, talking strategy for their next match.

"No, never met him," Fudou replied. He felt a small burn of jealousy – Kidou had never invited him to strategy discussions. Hell, Kidou pretended he didn't exist outside of the football field.

Suddenly, Fudou felt a lot less gleeful at Aphrodi's addition to the team.

"Is he a powerful forward?" Tachimukai asked him, starry-eyed. Fudou narrowed his eyes – this time, the pang of jealousy was much stronger and it fed into the pulse of his heart.

"Why don't you ask him  _yourself_?" he sneered, stepping past him. He would practice on his own and he wouldn't even have to hear all these annoying questions this time.

Unfortunately, someone snagged his elbow and tugged him back. Fudou twisted, barely regaining his balance, and bared his teeth, ready to chew out whoever thought that they had the right to manhandle  _him_ …

Something fell behind him, slamming into the ground in an explosion of dirt. Fudou pulled free of the hand – it was Fubuki, staring at him with wide eyes – and turned to look at what had nearly taken off his head.

It was a football, blue and black.

"This is Gazel of Diamond Dust," a cool voice issued from within. "Our match tomorrow will be held at the Football Frontier Stadium, eleven a.m. If you fail to show, we will drop footballs indiscriminately on all of Tokyo."

First Gran, then Burn, and now Gazel. Why did all master-rank captains seem to want him dead? Fudou wondered if he exuded some sort of aura that compelled people to hate him upon sight.

It would certainly explain a lot.

* * *

"Have you prepared for your match today?" Gran said coolly, examining a piece of mold on the wall with disinterest.

"What preparation?" Gazel laughed. "I'll crush this puny team. Gemini Storm and Epsilon were a disappointment that I'm certainly not going to emulate."

"Careful, Gazel," Burn sneered. "There's been a lot of 'pride before a fall' going around lately." He accompanied the taunt with a side glance to Gran and Gazel wondered, for the hundredth time, what had changed.

Days ago, Gran had been the favorite and Burn had joined him in their expressive rants about how Father favored Gran and Gaia more than any other team. Then, suddenly, it had changed. Gran lost favor, slowly but surely, and now – seemingly overnight – Burn had gained it.

Both master-rank captains had arrived to the stadium dressed for war and Gazel felt like he was caught in the crossfire.

"I'll be fine," Gazel repeated, unsure of who he was trying to convince, and walked out onto the field.

* * *

"Get into position," Hitomiko said, a one-sentence pep talk that did nothing to alleviate anyone's mood. Epsilon was gone, but Diamond Dust had proven that they possessed a killer instinct that Desarm hadn't had.

Fudou still remembered how close he had been to being decapitated.

But things didn't seem as hopeless as they used to be. Gouenji was on their team now, and they'd held their own against Prominence. Aphrodi was a phenomenal striker and although half the team still eyed him warily…well, even  _Fudou_  himself had been accepted. Sort of.

He eyed the distance between him and Kidou, who was playing an elevated playmaker position, just ahead of Touko in the center of the field, and suppressed a sigh.

Hitomiko had decided to bench Kogure in favor of Tsunami this match. Fudou couldn't say he supported the decision, but ultimately it didn't matter much to him. All he could do was play the best he could, reading the match and supporting his teammates, and making sure Raimon won.

Endou had just walked into the goal when Diamond Dust shimmered into place, flakes of snow blowing away on the wind. Fudou eyed the snow speculatively – were they appearing from someplace cold, or simply using fake snow? Before he could fully contemplate the question, the Aliea team took their places on the field and the game began.

The whistle blew and Aphrodi touched the ball, silently passing it to Gouenji. Before Gouenji could take a single step, Diamond Dust moved and moved  _fast._  Gazel stood, smirking and raking one hand through his hair, at the vanguard of a complicated defensive lineup that distracted Raimon's forwards long enough for the ball to be stolen.

Fudou barely had time to register the changed formation as Diamond Dust surged forward as one. Kidou's rapid-fire orders did little to break their momentum and, in no time, Gazel stood in front of Endou with the ball at his feet.

Endou gaped as the defense scrambled. Fudou saw their situation and cursed inwardly – Prominence had been handicapped by Burn's sudden interest in him during their earlier match, but it looked like even then they'd been going easy on them, if this performance by Diamond Dust was anything to go by.

"I won't underestimate you," Gazel chuckled, and his words carried over the stadium. He spun in place and the world went cold. "Northern Impact!"

Fortunately for them, Touko and Kabeyama had used Gazel's momentary hesitation to rush to the goal. The combined chimes of "The Tower!" and "The Wall!" rang out as Gazel's shot sped towards the goal.

Both the defensive techniques failed – Fudou winced as the ball tore through them like paper – but they gave Endou enough time to prepare. His Fist of Justice easily repelled the ball, sending it to a waiting Domon.

Gazel turned, still smiling, and walked calmly back to his side of the field. Fudou had restrained his surprise, but it was clear that others hadn't done the same – Endou was looking at Kidou in shock and even Gouenji was frowning.

If this was how  _Diamond Dust_  played when they were serious, then Fudou didn't hold much hope of ever defeating Aliea Academy.

The whistle blew again and Endou threw the ball back into play. This time, Ichinose brought the ball up, dodging the Diamond Dust players. Fudou moved up, keeping an eye out just in case Ichinose needed to punt the ball over, and he caught Ichinose's hesitation when he reached the center line and looked for a forward.

Unlike Prominence, Diamond Dust was observing standard tactics. Gouenji had two people marking him and despite his tricks, they were sticking to him like glue. Aphrodi, on the other hand, had only one mark.

Ichinose passed to Gouenji.

Fudou spent a second to thoroughly curse Ichinose out in his head before he turned and headed back. Gouenji had no prayer of keeping the ball and, sure enough, the ball was kicked over to the midfielder wearing a mask.

Mr. Mask started running but Fudou had a head start on him, and it was child's play to match his pace and steal the ball as the guy attempted a pass to Gazel. Fudou fluidly turned and passed the ball to Kidou who trapped it and spun back in one smooth motion.

Fudou turned his back on Mr. Mask's incredulous expression and jogged back up the field.

"Ichinose, Touko," Kidou called out, and the entire midfield moved up in sync. Kidou proved to have slightly more sense than Ichinose, and passed to the now-unmarked Aphrodi, who immediately proceeded to do what he did best.

Effortlessly outclass everyone around him.

Fudou remembered watching Heaven's Time on national television – how Aphrodi simply disappeared in a blur. Watching it in person was even more astounding. In no time, Aphrodi was standing in front of the goal.

"God Knows!" Aphrodi's voice rang out over the field and Fudou stopped, stunned, as the graceful white wings unfolded. The ball shot towards the Diamond Dust goal and went in smoothly.

Fudou wasn't the only person watching agape. Gazel was looking at the goal like it, too, had sprouted wings. "Unbelievable," he whispered. Unbelievable was right – Aphrodi had vastly improved since the Football Frontier finals.

As Fudou was the only person paying attention to the Diamond Dust captain, he was perhaps the only person who noticed Gazel's expression shift from shock to anger.

Gazel repeated the gesture he'd been doing from the beginning of the game, but this time his fingers ran into a tangle. Gazel tugged, then gripped his hair so tight his knuckles went white.

Fudou walked back to the center line, avoiding Gazel's gaze.


	9. Chapter 9

The air was glacial as Diamond Dust restarted play. Raimon resumed their starting positions still celebrating the goal, but it didn't take long for them to read the atmosphere and tense up in preparation for Diamond Dust's retaliation. Fudou didn't envy Gouenji and Aphrodi one bit for having to bear the brunt of the chill radiating from Gazel.

Something simmered under Gazel's thin smile as he took his position. He checked the formation of his teammates, then turned to Raimon slowly, deliberately.

Fudou couldn't suppress a shiver. Gazel's eyes were narrowed, and his gaze burned with such a cold fury that goosebumps dotted up all along Fudou's back and arms.

"Just you wait." A chilly wind carried his words over to Fudou and beyond. "I'll show you the darkness of absolute zero!"

He kicked off, tapping the ball back to his fellow forward before rushing ahead. Gouenji and Aphrodi were waiting, of course, and after a brief midfield struggle, with Ichinose running up to help, Raimon won the ball. Gouenji deftly sent the ball to Kidou and ran off with Aphrodi to start Raimon's own offense.

Fudou was a split second behind them, but that was enough to tell that something was off.

It was the distance. Raimon's constantly changing roster was finally catching up to it. Whether out of inexperience, or due to Diamond Dust's constant hustling, Gouenji and Aphrodi had advanced too quickly. And while Kidou could normally be relied upon to bring the ball up...

The big guy (Fudou swore that there was a big guy on every single team they faced, which was hardly original but made for pretty convenient labeling) pounced, advancing with a speed that belied his frame. Fudou changed his course towards Kidou as the big guy dropped into a sliding tackle, skidding so smoothly and quickly on the grass that it was as if it were made of ice.

"Frozen Steal!"

The 'oh shit!' expression on Kidou's face would normally have been so satisfying. But now, all it meant was that the ball was gone.

Fudou cursed and swerved again, this time heading for Raimon's defense. Aliea's modus operandi, and Diamond Dust's especially, was quick, short passes sent all over the field in order to confuse and scatter the opponent's defense. But no matter how much you faff around in the midfield, you have to send the ball to the forwards eventually.

And there was no time to lose.

Kidou was doubling back too. But a Diamond Dust midfielder was with him, blocking his every attempt to break free.

"Someone get Gazel!"

Fudou registered Kidou's call at the back of his mind. He would smirk if he had the energy to. But he knew better than to divert any resources from chasing the Diamond Dust captain. Fudou had been able to keep up with Burn without much effort, but Gazel was much faster than either of them.

He zeroed in on Gazel, who was also running, seemingly getting further by the second. One of the Diamond Dust defenders appeared in front of him, but almost by reflex, Fudou sidestepped him. His mind was only on stopping Diamond Dust's strongest forward.

"Hey! Gazel, was it?" he called out, hoping to distract him. Gazel was by now tussling with the Raimon defense. Before Fudou's very eyes, he received the ball, dodged Domon, and sped for the goal.

Fudou cursed again, and doubled up on his running. Not on his watch!

"You said something about the true darkness of ice?" he called with a bravado he couldn't say he felt, hoping that the taunt would at least slow Gazel down.

It worked… somewhat. Gazel stiffened and looked up, perhaps only now registering that his team had left one Raimon player unmarked. Or maybe Fudou had broken his concentration. Whatever it was, Fudou was just glad to have a pocket of time in which to catch up to him.

He grinned. Now that Gazel was within his reach, he was back in familiar territory.

"Killer Slide!" he called, bringing his feet down and aiming them so that the spikes were faced outwards for maximum damage. Barely legal was really the best form of legal.

Adrenaline rushed through his veins as he felt his spikes meet the ball, and Fudou jumped up into a run, looking around for his next pass target.

And then he was launched into the air, blistering winds whipping his mohawk into his eyes.

"Frozen Steal."

Gazel's cold voice came from behind him, fading away as Fudou flew forward onto his back. He lay there for a moment, winded, before struggling up. But it was too late. Gazel had advanced to face Endou one-on-one.

"Northern Impact!"

"Fist of Justice!"

Fudou could only watch as the icy shot powered past Endou into the ends of the goal.

The half-time whistle blew, breaking Raimon out of its shock. From the bench, Hitomiko clapped her hands, and, like robots, Raimon went.

Diamond Dust was also making its way back to their locker room, but Gazel was still at Raimon's goalmouth, seemingly waiting for Endou to get up. He spoke, too softly for Fudou to pick out the words, and walked away.

Then he stopped. Fudou narrowed his eyes when Gazel turned to look directly at him. The opposing captain's expression was dark and his gaze as volatile as the wildest tundra blizzard.

Fudou stared back. Even if warmth was being sucked out of him, leaving only a cold void, he wouldn't be the one to break the eye contact.

Gazel eventually did, his eyes roving speculatively over Fudou's body in a way that made him feel almost exposed. His gaze lingered at Fudou's chest, boring into Fudou's heart and making him feel like his core was being flayed inside out.

Then he looked back up at Fudou, sending him a glare so malevolent that Fudou stifled a gasp.

Someone rapped him on the shoulder, and Fudou jolted, registering only a passing flash of blond hair.

When he turned back, Gazel was gone.

* * *

Gazel took a few deep breaths as he walked through the tunnel leading to the Diamond Dust locker room. It wouldn't do for his team, and Gran and Burn, to see him like this.

 _Especially_  the latter two.

The game might be tied now, but Gazel had already identified Raimon's two strengths. If you could even call one of them a strength; Gazel much preferred the term "dirty cheating". And, no, Endou Mamoru was not one of them. Not that he'd say that in front of Gran, of course. Gran's fixation on the guy bordered on the obsessive, and Gazel wasn't about to waste his precious energy getting in between them.

He exhaled, wiping all emotion from his face, before stepping into the locker room. He raised a hand in greeting and nodded at his team, but it was Gran's knowing glance and Burn's sardonic smirk that he was more keenly aware of.

"Aren't you embarrassed to be tied with them?" Burn said with a mocking grin. Well, Gazel had already known he'd say that. It was mere child's play to brush it off, swig a bottle of water and pretend he hadn't heard.

Gran was a different matter. Gazel had been caught on the wrong foot, but he wasn't a fool. He knew how delicate the power struggle could be at times. Just because Gran was faltering didn't mean that all was lost for him. For now, he was still worth staying on the good side of. Especially if Gazel could make this bargain…

"You'll defeat Endou, won't you?" Gran said, the green of his eyes as boundless and unfathomable as the stars.

"I swear on the name of Diamond Dust," Gazel replied, crushing the now-empty bottle in his fist, "that I will not lose."

* * *

Endou took the lead during the half-time discussion. Despite his complete defeat to Gazel just minutes earlier, he was practically bouncing on his toes, eyes blazing as he chattered on about how it would be different next time. If it had come from someone else, Fudou wouldn't have taken that statement seriously at all. He wondered just how Endou did it.

He grit his teeth. He still felt cold after his encounter with Gazel earlier. If you could even call the staring competition that.

It was around the time that discussion started on the ultimate technique not having a completion (well of course it didn't, no technique was ever perfect, was it?) that Fudou gave up the struggle and closed his eyes, deciding to just get as much rest as he could before the second half. Catching up to Gazel, what happened afterwards notwithstanding, had taken a lot out of him. If he wanted to be able to play at his fullest in the next half he needed to rest and recharge. As much as he could in these fifteen minutes, anyway.

"Fudou." Coach Kira's voice broke in, and he snapped up to attention. Coach Kira, who could always be relied on to put a spanner into the works.

Her gaze was as inscrutable as ever. "You will switch with Ichinose-kun," she ordered, and Fudou paused. Then his eyebrows shot up as he realized the implications of her statement.

And here he'd thought, just for a split second, that she was going to take him off. Hell, with her track record, that wouldn't have been surprising in the slightest.

But being the first line of defense against Gazel?

His run in the previous half must have made an impression on her. Fudou was sure he was the only person on the team who had succeeded in catching up to an Aliea player, much less the captain of Diamond Dust, from such a distance. He could understand her logic.

And that was precisely what made it so hard for him to acknowledge the beast in his heart, hammering at the rungs of its cage with its fists, yelling at the top of its lungs that this was a Very Bad Idea.

His competition against Gazel was unsustainable. That much he was sure of. But it was also clear that something about him had rubbed Gazel the wrong way at the end of the first half. From his past experiences with Aliea, that usually meant that he would be targeted anyway. And, with the tie, Diamond Dust would only be playing harder than ever.

On the other hand, Fudou had the niggling sensation, slowly but surely forming, that there was something hiding in the depths of Coach Kira's eyes. Her gaze, sometimes prescient, sometimes blind, always unfathomable, bore into Fudou, waiting for his reply.

If not him, then who would do it? Who  _could_  do it?

Fudou resisted the urge to pluck out the temple charm, tucked safely under his shirt, and hold it for reassurance.

Instead, he balled his hands into fists and smirked.

"Sounds interesting," he drawled, not elaborating any further because anyone with any football sense (so most of the Raimon caravan, hopefully) would have grasped the true meaning of the switch by now.

"As you command, Coach."

Raimon took to the field with a renewed sense of purpose: to stop Diamond Dust from having any further chances at goal.

Fudou took to the field with, mostly, an oily sense of dread.

* * *

Fudou bounced Gazel's sneer back at him once he took his position. As expected, the opposing captain noticed the position switch the moment Fudou took one step past the spot allotted to his previous position. But the vibe had changed. It was no longer anger smoldering beneath Gazel's calm façade. Instead, it was anticipation, or perhaps even a shade of arrogance?

Whatever it was, Fudou had no more time to think about it as the whistle blew and play started.

Like before, Aphrodi kicked off, handing the ball to Gouenji who sent it straight to Kidou. Both sides traded offenses, with neither side letting up in the slightest. Diamond Dust was ready to exact its revenge, but Raimon was also more than ready to hold its own.

By the middle of the second half, Fudou had let off a good few  _hissatsu_  techniques: not just when defending against Gazel, but also to support Raimon's offense. He wasn't the only one. Kidou was dishing them out like candy – he had to, to get the ball to where it needed to be – and even Ichinose wasn't holding back on the Flame Dances now. The ball reached Raimon's goal a few times, but with the help of the defenders'  _hissatsu_  techniques, Endou successfully managed to keep Diamond Dust from getting it in.

Everyone was visibly tiring. Fudou would try to do something, but he had his own job to do.

He fell back as Gouenji and Aphrodi went in for the kill. Diamond Dust had tweaked their defense strategy against them, opting to place two defenders on each and mark them evenly. It was now a lot harder for Raimon to advance, much less execute their set plays to their maximum potential. But Fudou couldn't afford to help. He'd learned that the hard way, right at the start of the half. The ball had been stolen and Fudou hadn't been able to double back in time. Only the intervention of Touko, Kabeyama,  _and_  Tsunami had prevented a goal.

And, yet, the absence of one extra man on offense made a difference. In the middle of a pass to Aphrodi, Gouenji was overwhelmed by his marks, and Diamond Dust took the ball.

Gazel sent the ball across to a ginger-haired girl wearing a mask before Fudou could reach him. But that girl was a midfielder. Where was Gazel's fellow Diamond Dust forward, the tall guy with seaweed hair whose face looked like it was made out of rocks? And, more importantly, where was the rest of Raimon? A split-second glance back showed Ichinose behind Mr. Mask and Stoneface on the other side of the field holding Fubuki and Kabeyama back.

Fudou wavered. Should he run over and help? But Gazel was still waiting and ready on this side of the field…

In that time, Miss Mask brought the ball past Stoneface and the Raimon players marking him (except it was really more the other way around) and ran at Endou from the far right. Endou was still in the middle, having committed to a combined Gazel-Stoneface offense just moments before. Belatedly, he jerked towards her.

"Northern Impact."

Miss Mask's version of the shot was a lot less flashy and understandably weaker than Gazel's, but with Endou in the wrong direction, it didn't even matter. With a sinking heart, Fudou realized that Endou wouldn't make it in time to catch the shot.

Endou seemed to realize this, too, if the haze that crossed his face momentarily was any indication. But he grit his teeth and sped up. (Fudou could relate.) And of course he did. It wasn't in his captain's mind to give up. Endou sprinted, flexed, dove…

And somehow got in between the ball and the goal. The ball bounced away.

Off Endou's  _head_.

Why did he have an image of a  _fist_  growing out of Endou's head to punch the ball away?

Fudou normally prided himself on his cool head during games, but even he was dumbfounded for a split second. By the time he regained his senses, the ball had disappeared.

Dread pooled at his core, and he whipped his head from left to right, scanning the field for the characteristic pattern of white and black. He saw the ball first, then the foot attached to it. By a miracle of the gods (heh, maybe Aphrodi was more than a pretty face and football skills), the ball had ended up under a Raimon foot. Fudou looked up at the connecting body and finally at the owner's bushy pink mane.

Tsunami's expression was still dumbfounded. So had he done that by instinct? His foot shifted, and he focused. Fudou could see it now – an arc straight to the goal, shining brightly to anyone with an iota of football instinct. Though albeit never before from so far away.

Tsunami shrugged and leapt up.

"Well, that works! Tsunami… Boost!"

The ball flew across the field – no, it was more like Tsunami rode it across half the field and gave it the final kick. He had improved vastly since the beach scrimmage so long ago. No one on Diamond Dust had expected a shot from that far, and the defense was caught like a deer in the headlights. The Diamond Dust goalie reacted only fast enough to touch the ball with his fingers, but it wasn't enough. The ball roared past him and crashed into the back of the net.

And Fudou laughed out loud.

He had got it all wrong.

He hadn't needed to hoist Raimon's fate onto his back. He hadn't needed to feel responsible. He wasn't anywhere near the sole factor in either Raimon's defense or its offense.

Raimon was powerful enough without him.

_Thump,_

_thump._

Fudou placed a hand on his chest in an attempt to calm his heartbeat down. He looked back at Gazel. The Diamond Dust captain's fists were clenched, and though he was struggling to keep it in, tremors ran all along his small frame. His pupils were narrowed down to pinpricks.

"How?" he gritted out through his teeth.

Fudou's heart quickened. A cold rush ran down his spine – for some reason, his heart throbbed in time with Gazel's harsh breaths.

"Isn't it about time you realized your mistake?" he asked, the edges of his mouth curving up. It was half a taunt, but the other half was a serious question. Gazel's eyes shuttered, and Fudou's heart skipped a beat.

He shifted, ready to react to Gazel's next movements, eyes on his navel so he wouldn't be taken in by any feints. But even that couldn't prepare him for what happened next.

Gazel lunged forward, his eyes blown wide and his mouth twisted into a snarl of fury. Fudou stumbled a step back, but he was so surprised that he didn't move fast enough. Gazel's hand closed around his shoulder, his fingers digging into his collarbone. Fudou tried to slip out, but Gazel's grip was too strong.

"What the hell?" Fudou reached for sneering disdain, but only managed to scrounge up barely-contained panic. "Let me go!"

His shout went unnoticed by the rest of Raimon, who were busy on Diamond Dust's side of the field celebrating Tsunami's goal.

It looked like he was on his own.

Again.

Fudou's eyes narrowed. He grabbed Gazel's wrist, vision tunneling down to only the boy in front of him, and tried to yank his hand off of him. But Gazel just gripped tighter, his fingers like ice piercing his back.

"What's the matter?" Gazel gave a twisted grin and Fudou's heart plummeted. That was not the smile of a sane person. "Can't get out? Too weak?"

_Thump,_

_thump._

Fudou gaped at Gazel, who used his momentary stillness to grab Fudou's neck with his other hand. Fudou froze and for a moment, they were suspended there in silence – Fudou, with Gazel's ice-cold hand on top of his pulse, and Gazel, staring at him with that maniacal grin, his flickering irises reminding Fudou, oddly, of white-hot flames.

Fudou had never felt so helpless.

"I figured it out,  _Shin Teikoku_ ," Gazel spat out, the words sounding like a curse, his eyes boring into Fudou. "I figured out your dirty little secret. And I'm going to tell  _everyone_."

Gazel was now so close that he could smell the faint scent of mint shampoo. Fudou wanted to laugh, but his heart was beating so fast that he thought he might explode if he took another breath. He reached for his charm just as Gazel wrapped his fingers around the chain and began to pull.

Fudou choked and spluttered, trying desperately to wrench free, but the Diamond Dust captain was stronger than him and it took everything Fudou had just to stay on his toes. God only knew where Raimon was and why they weren't helping him, why they were just standing by and watching Gazel strangle him, just like everyone else in his life who stood by and watched him self-destruct.

The chain gave a little under the strain and he tightened his grip around it, even as black spots swarmed over his vision. At least they blotted out Gazel's deranged face. He could feel the cold, sharp edges digging into him through the charm's fabric, but he wouldn't let this go, no, out of everything in his life this was the  _one thing_   _he would not let go_  –

"Fudou!  _Fudou!_ "

– everyone just wanted his power, anyway, that was why they followed him in the first place and why they abandoned him in the end –

The pressure on his throat abruptly lessened and Fudou fell back, collapsing onto the grass. He coughed harshly and breathed in, long and deep, until the black spots were gone. His fingers were still tightly wound around his charm, but, try as he might, he couldn't relax them.

"Fudou-san! Fudou-san, are you all right?"

Fudou blinked. A familiar face was swimming into view. He let out another cough that threatened to rip open his throat, and the figure drew back. Ah, of course… Tachimukai.

He looked around. Behind him was Fubuki. Standing just beside him was Gouenji. And further off, walking away from Gazel with a disgusted grimace on his face, was Aphrodi.

And then, of course, came the bright white light.

* * *

Tachimukai helped Fudou up, inwardly wincing as Fudou coughed again. Fudou's face was deathly pale and the beginning of a bruise was already beginning to darken around his neck. Tachimukai opened his mouth to suggest that he take his necklace off – the bright red line stood out vividly against his pale skin – but thought better of it. Fudou was clutching his temple charm like it was a lifeline and Tachimukai didn't want to take it away.

Once he was reasonably reassured that Fudou wasn't going to keel over, he straightened up and eyed the new arrivals on the field.

Gran was standing there, his foot on the soccer ball with the inverted, white-on-black color scheme that Tachimukai had last seen in Okinawa. This time, however, Burn was by his side, looking more smug than furious. The Prominence captain's sneer was aimed at Fudou, and Tachimukai could practically see Fudou's hackles raising as he stared back.

Gran, on the other hand, was staring at Gazel. The aura around him was so dark and so murderous that Tachimukai wondered how Gazel hadn't dropped dead on the spot.

He thought he'd seen Gran angry when he confronted Burn in the middle of Raimon's match against Prominence. But that seemed like irritation compared with the rage that was radiating from the Gaia captain now.

Gazel's unhinged smile was now replaced by the blank expression he had worn at the start of the game, but Tachimukai could see the cracks in his mask. He was silent, along with the rest of the team. In fact, the entire field was silent, as if they were holding their breath to see what happened next.

Burn spoke first.

"Bravo!" He clapped, the sharp sound echoing around the stadium and unsettling everyone. "I suppose congratulations are in order, Raimon." Tachimukai frowned – in all the commotion, he hadn't heard the ending whistle. "You've successfully defeated a master-rank –"

"You attacked a member of Raimon," Gran cut across Burn and Burn also fell silent. Compared to last time at the game against Prominence, Gran was calm and collected.

But Tachimukai had never heard Gran's voice so cold before.

Gazel straightened up. "He's not a –"

"You attacked a human," Gran continued, speaking over Gazel. Gazel looked back mutinously, as if he wanted to retort, but kept silent.

"You broke  _his_  rule," Gran said, and Tachimukai turned to see the color drain from Fudou's face. Whoever Gran was talking about, Fudou knew him. And judging by the reaction, this mysterious person was someone to be feared.

"You broke the rules first!" Gazel shouted back, "You gave –"

"You know what happens to those that break the rules, Gazel," Gran continued calmly. Gazel retreated a few steps before the spark returned to his eyes.

"I'm not Reize." He narrowed his eyes. "And I'm not Desarm! You have no right to banish me!"

At this, Gran smiled. It looked nothing like Burn's lazy sneer or Gazel's insane grin but Tachimukai felt his blood turn to ice.

"You lost, Gazel," he said softly. "You're already gone."

Gazel's already pale face turned the color of paper and he turned to Burn, his tone sliding in an instant from defiant to pleading. "We can unite our forces, Burn!" he cried out. "We can take it back together and defeat Gaia!"

Burn smiled briefly at that. Then his flame-yellow eyes narrowed.

"Why," he said slowly, "would I want to ally myself with _you_?"

Gran kicked the ball and white light exploded outwards, covering the stadium.

Once it cleared, Aliea Academy was gone.

* * *

Halfway through the commotion, the feeling had finally started to return to Fudou's fingers. He had quietly unclasped his fingers from his chain and tucked it back under his shirt, fully intending to slink off at the first possible moment. The last thing he wanted right now was to be ensnared in victory celebration festivities.

Though, to be fair, it didn't look like it was going to happen.

Aside from the crater Gran's black soccer ball had left in the grass, there was no sign that Raimon had just played against Diamond Dust. A chilly wind blew across the field as the Raimon Caravan stared at each other, trying to process what had just happened.

Well, for starters, Gran, the terrifying leader of Genesis and Endou's former friend, had banished Gazel. Of course, the memory of Gazel himself banishing Epsilon just ten days ago was still fresh in everyone's minds.

Also, Endou had done a sort of Bakuretsu Punch with his head.

Oh, and they had defeated their first Aliea Academy master-rank team too.

Touko was the first to break the silence. Mustering up a grin, she gave the entire team a huge thumbs-up.

"Great job, guys!" she said, though even Fudou could hear that her voice was missing its usual pep. "We won!"

Half a beat passed before Kabeyama and Tachimukai cheered loudly. Their voices reverberated along the empty field, sounding more like foghorns than actual humans.

"That's right!" Endou said, clapping both hands together and also forcing up a smile. "Great effort, guys! We're now closer to defeating Aliea Academy!"

Fudou was too tired to stifle his smirk at that.  _Closer_? All what happened just now had shown was that they still had two more megalomaniacal captains left to finish off.

"That is correct," Coach Kira said. Fudou had a sneaky feeling that she wasn't too sure about what had just happened, either. "Well done. You should all go and take a well-deserved rest. Endou, stay back. I'd like to speak with you."

"Not so fast." A voice cut through the chatter just as everyone turned to traipse back to the caravan. "There is one more thing to discuss."

Everyone turned to the speaker. Even in his Raimon uniform, Aphrodi was incandescent, his golden hair a contrast to the dark rage on his face. He gestured towards the field with one hand.

"What," he asked, voice taut, "was  _that_?"

Initially, Fudou was as confused as everyone else looked. Well, not exactly everyone. Kidou's brows were practically digging into the bridge of his nose, but that was also his default expression in response to tension, so Fudou paid that only the barest amount of heed. On the other hand, the set of Gouenji's mouth was grim. And the aura Fubuki was radiating was not the psychological exhaustion the boy had been exhibiting lately, but rather quiet irritation. (Heh, maybe his striker-friendship with Gouenji was turning out to be good for him.)

"You all know  _exactly_  what I am talking about," Aphrodi said, tossing his hair back with his other hand. And as Aphrodi's blood-red orbs surveyed each of them in turn, lingering especially on the defenders (Fubuki gave a tiny nod), Fudou started to connect the dots. This… this was the last thing he wanted.

"What were you thinking?" Aphrodi demanded, his tone acid. "Leaving Fudou at Gazel's mercy for so long? Until Fubuki got there? Until  _I_  got there, all the way from the opposite side of the field? For doing nothing even as it took four of us to pull them apart?"

Fudou said nothing, though it was mostly because he couldn't believe that the person coming to his defense was the one whose arrival he had wanted to go so badly. Self-consciously, he reached for his neck, then dropped his hand. Why couldn't Aphrodi just have let it go?

Kabeyama did a strange combination of shrinking and bristling. "I wanted to, but it was scary!" he protested, hands going up and down. "They both looked possessed!"

"He seemed fine on his own," Ichinose said, face sullen. "I thought Fudou was in control."

Fudou's hand immediately went back to his neck. Was Ichinose blind or stupid? He could still feel the tenderness of his skin where Gazel had grabbed him. Knowing his luck, the area would darken splendidly by tomorrow and give him another tattoo to match the one on his head.

Aphrodi scoffed. He turned his judgement onto the two who had just spoken and, somehow, the scorn in his eyes intensified. Kabeyama jumped back and even Ichinose looked shaken.

"This is not the Raimon I thought I knew," Aphrodi declared. "In the finals of the Football Frontier, and in the televised matches against Aliea Academy, Raimon impressed me with its teamwork. But where was that today?" He didn't mention the fiasco that had been the first half and the failed passes to Gouenji, but then again, he didn't need to. "Fudou is your teammate, right?"

Silence followed his words, spreading out like rolling fog that quickly suffocated anything anyone may have wanted to say. The Raimon Caravan shifted, looking everywhere but at Fudou.

A few more moments passed while Aphrodi surveyed the team. Then, he turned and left with nothing but a sneer and another toss of his hair.

Still holding his neck, Fudou took that chance to slink away.


	10. Chapter 10

He was so thorough in avoiding the entire team that Fudou felt slightly impressed that Tachimukai managed to track him down.

"Fudou-san!" Tachimukai said, his voice wavering and – oh, god, were those _tears_ in his eyes? Fudou considered whistling nonchalantly and pretending the sandy-haired midfielder/goalkeeper didn't exist. "I need your help."

Dammit.

"What?" Fudou heaved out a sigh, but stopped and gave Tachimukai his undivided attention.

Unfortunately, that one word seemed to break the dam – not the actual dam of waterworks, thankfully, Fudou did not know what to do with tears – and Tachimukai spilled out a story of random player changes and secret notebooks and nonsense words that created _hissatsu_ techniques and…

"Wait!" Fudou said sharply, and Tachimukai stopped babbling, his lower lip trembling. "Hitomiko made Endou a libero?" he asked, trying to parse through the information.

"Yes." A structurally sound decision, given that Endou displayed the ability to block goals while out of the penalty area, but colossally poor timing given the general mood of the caravan, even by Coach Hitomiko's standards.

"And she made you the goalkeeper?"

Tachimukai nodded, looking miserable. He had probably been the only choice left, unless Kidou dabbled in goalkeeping – he probably did, genius prodigy that he was – but Fudou was at a loss as to why Tachimukai looked so wretched.

Hoping that the rest of his statement would clarify the issue, Fudou asked, "And what is this shoe… uh, whatever that nonsense was."

" _Shotatata tan, dobababa bam!_ " Tachimukai yelled, half-hysterically. Oo-kay. Clearly that was the main problem.

"Yes, that," Fudou waved aside the pronunciation, "what does that have to do with anything?" He noted Tachimukai's rising panic and hastily added, "Take a few deep breaths first."

Tachimukai did as told and, after a few seconds, looked marginally better. "It's the explanation of a _hissatsu_ technique left in Endou's grandfather's secret notebook."

"So it's a phonetic key?" Fudou summarized, and Tachimukai blinked. Clearly he had not thought of it in those terms. "And you're supposed to learn this _hissatsu_?"

"Majin the Hand and God Hand won't stop Aliea, and I can't learn Fist of Justice and it's constantly evolving and…" Tachimukai cut off and stared down at his shoes. "I'm so sorry to trouble you with my problems, Fudou-san."

Dear _God_. Heaving an aggravated sigh at the universe for ruining his perfectly good sulk, Fudou grabbed Tachimukai's hand and tugged him back in the general direction of the caravan. He'd passed a relatively empty football field on the way and while Fudou was shit at expressing his feelings, he was brilliant at expressing football.

"What are you doing? Fudou-san?"

Fudou didn't stop tugging Tachimukai behind him until they were standing in the middle of the deserted football field. He pulled the football out of Tachimukai's surprised hands and let it fall, watching it bounce once before he trapped it.

"So you learned the key to a new _hissatsu_ technique," Fudou said calmly, "One that will stop Prominence and Gaia."

Tachimukai just blinked at him, looking a little lost, but that was fine. Now that Fudou was in his element, he could plan his way through this. It was just another match, another weakness that needed to be covered, just another strategy he needed to utilize.

"And you're getting scared because being goalkeeper is a huge responsibility," Fudou theorized. "And you don't understand the _hissatsu_ key." That was probably an understatement. If Fudou didn't know how big a legend Endou Daisuke was, he'd probably label the man a lunatic.

"How can anyone possibly understand –" Tachimukai burst out, clearly frustrated but Fudou held up a hand to cut him off. He needed to get everything in order.

But he still bit back a mental snicker at the thought of Endou's face if Tachimukai muttered the same, clearly unflattering opinion of Endou Daisuke around his captain. Pity Tachimukai didn't possess nearly that level of disrespect.

"And you're under a lot of pressure, because Endou didn't manage to stop neither Atomic Flare, nor any of Gaia's shots. Also because Endou is your personal hero and you don't want to let him down," Fudou concluded, ignoring the bright red tint to Tachimukai's cheeks.

"Yes," Tachimukai mumbled, even though Fudou didn't need a response.

Fudou just shrugged. "Then I suppose we'll have to learn that _hissatsu_ technique, won't we?"

Tachimukai stared at him in shock, which then transitioned to obvious disbelief and unflattering doubt. "How… how am I supposed to do that?" he asked, in a tone that clearly implied that Fudou was the crazy one.

"The same way Endou masters his techniques." And at this, Fudou finally cracked the smirk that he'd been suppressing since he realized what the problem was. " _Practice_."

Tachimukai looked faintly green.

* * *

Honestly, Kidou didn't know why he was here. Well, he did – the caravan was leaving in a half-hour and he seemed to be the only one who noticed that Fudou and Tachimukai were missing and _somebody_ had to find them before they got ready to leave and Aphrodi threw another hissy fit at their absence – but that didn't really explain why he was going in search of them, by himself and without telling anyone.

He really was a terrible liar.

His mind flashed back to the end of the game, to the killing intent that he'd only noticed at Tachimukai's furious shout. He'd turned when Aphrodi and Gouenji managed to separate Fudou and Gazel, and for a second, the only thing he could see was the stark terror on Fudou's face.

Then it was gone, sliding neatly behind the blank mask that Kidou had seen ever since Fudou stepped through the caravan doors. He couldn't hide everything behind a mask, however, and Kidou had seen how fiercely Fudou gripped his temple charm. The whites of his knuckles had been stark against his stiff knobbly frame.

"Mugen the Hand!"

Kidou paused at the faint scream and begin walking in its general direction. It seemed like he'd found them – Tachimukai was presumably working on the technique that Endou had given him.

Speaking of techniques…

Endou's new position as libero opened up a slew of possibilities. He'd seen Endou's talent for scoring all the way back in Inazuma Break, and Endou had more than enough power to master another _hissatsu_ technique. He'd been using the practice to ruminate on his choices – better a _hissatsu_ technique that he already knew than trying to quickly master one he didn't – while Endou got used to playing in his new position.

One technique in particular stuck out, but Kidou was hesitant. Kidou didn't know the technique as well as he'd hoped, which meant he'd have to go back to the source. And while seeing Teikoku again would be painful for him – Kageyama and Sakuma and Genda and _how many people had he failed_ – he couldn't imagine it would be any better for Fudou or Aphrodi.

And while Kidou couldn't care less about Aphrodi – the wannabe god was still far too arrogant for his own good – he was admittedly a bit concerned about Fudou. The prickly midfielder had made no overtures to befriend his own teammates, and Kidou doubted that he'd act any better in front of the team he'd once tried to emulate.

He finally reached the football field that Tachimukai was practicing on and paused for a second, watching Fudou's gray eyes dart from one point to another, silently calculating. Then the midfielder moved up a slot and hit the ball with such force that the ball whizzed past Tachimukai's wide eyes.

Hmm. Maybe they should teach Fudou a _hissatsu_ technique as well. Something other than Emperor Penguin No. 1, at any rate.

"You didn't even try to stop it that time," Fudou said, clearly irritated.

"Kidou-san!" Tachimukai hurriedly pointed out, clearly using him as a distraction. Kidou didn't allow his amused smile to show as Fudou turned, gray eyes already narrowed.

Kidou unintentionally bristled. Fudou always looked like he was spoiling for a fight and honestly, Kidou was getting a bit weary of the midfielder's silent treatment.

Okay, so maybe that was a little hypocritical.

"Tachimukai," he acknowledged, and paused slightly – Kidou didn't want to talk to Fudou any more than he had to, but it was incredibly rude not to acknowledge he existed. "Fudou," he finished, and all three people pretended that they hadn't noticed his reluctance.

"The caravan is leaving in half an hour," Kidou informed them, before turning in a sweeping moment he knew made his cloak billow and stalking off of the field.

* * *

Fubuki sat down next to the window and stared out the glass. Several of his teammates were still standing outside, jabbing at a board full of player formations and trying to talk above one another. Endou's new position upset the mostly defensive formation they'd had and everyone from Kogure to Gouenji had an opinion on the new lineup.

Well, almost everyone.

Fubuki's eyes were instinctively drawn to fluttering brown hair and narrowed gray eyes. Fudou's face was set in a hard expression as he deliberately turned away from the discussion.

He was still listening to it, Fubuki could tell. Even as Tachimukai jumped around him, chattering about something, Fudou's attention was clearly on Kidou and his discussion. Kidou, however, didn't notice or didn't care.

Fubuki wondered why. Even in his view of strategy – which was mostly stealing the ball and then unleashing Atsuya on it – Fudou was a genius. He'd held his own against Burn and Gazel and the two Aliea captains were nothing to sneeze at.

Fubuki would know. Atsuya had lost it at Desarm's taunting and even him – the _real_ him, the Shirou hiding inside – had fallen to pieces because of Gaia. That Fudou had faced off single-handedly against two master-rank captains and _survived_ (Fubuki ignored the still-vibrant red line that stood out starkly against Fudou's pale skin) was a testament to either his strategies or his charming personality.

And Atsuya could personally attest that he didn't possess an inkling of the latter.

But that Kidou was so lost in his memories of Shin Teikoku that he ignored the brilliant mind in front of him was a tragic circumstance that had led to the breakdown in the second half of Diamond Dust. If Aphrodi hadn't been the skilled genius he was, then Fubuki had no doubt they would've lost.

Fubuki blinked, eyes still on Fudou as everyone entered the caravan, finally ready to leave. It seemed like they'd agreed on a destination. Of course, given Hitomiko's proclivity to sudden and upsetting proclamations, Fubuki wasn't the slightest bit surprised when she announced Teikoku Academy as their next stop.

He was, however, surprised when Kidou explained it was his idea.

"Teikoku Academy is the birthplace of many _hissatsu_ techniques, some of which we can use," he said clearly, his eyes not quite meeting everyone and completely ignoring the corner where Aphrodi and Fudou sat. "Death Zone is the perfect technique to start with, given that Endou is now a libero, and only Teikoku has the information to help us reinvent this technique."

If anyone had a problem with his reasoning, they didn't mention it.

But Fubuki had a problem with his strategies. And as Endou, Gouenji and Ichinose had presumably noticed and discarded the idea of Fudou participating in discussions, for whatever reason, it was up to him.

Fubuki gulped. Shirou curled into himself while Atsuya prodded impatiently. After a particularly hard poke, Fubuki finally twisted in his seat – all the player changes had resulted in Fudou and Tachimukai sitting directly behind him and Gouenji – and whispered through the gap between the seat and the window.

"Fudou-kun?"

There was only silence. Fubuki twisted a little further, seating himself comfortably (and accidentally leaning against Gouenji, but fortunately the forward didn't seem to care). He could see Tachimukai's wide eyes watching him through the gap, so he'd definitely heard.

"Fudou-kun?" he tried again, before Atsuya pushed his way to the front. " _Fudou_!" he whispered harshly, and at this, the midfielder finally responded.

"Yes?" came the midfielder's lazy drawl. Fubuki bristled a bit at the bored tone, but Shirou pushed the irritation aside.

Now that he'd caught Fudou's attention, he didn't know what to do. Fubuki sat in silence for three seconds until Atsuya got fed up and pushed his way to the surface with a growl. "What did you think about our new strategy?"

Shirou immediately forced Atsuya back down and the backlash of anger unsettled Fubuki so much that he nearly missed Fudou's reply.

"What strategy?" Sarcasm dripped from his words.

Fubuki shot a guilty look at the front of the bus, where Endou, Kidou and Domon were talking, but no one seemed to have heard and he was pretty sure that Gouenji was politely pretending to have gone deaf.

"Is it that bad?" Fubuki whispered. He thought the idea of creating a few new offensive _hissatsu_ techniques was great – it would enable them to finally get the upper hand on Aliea.

Fudou huffed and even though Fubuki couldn't see his face, he could imagine his look of annoyance. "Let me put this in a way that you can understand," he said, and Fubuki thought he did a very good job of keeping Atsuya from reacting to the veiled insult. "Imagine you're watching this team that very nearly gets crushed by every opponent they face and only manage to win by virtue of a supremely talented forward and a miracle worker for a goalkeeper."

"Okay," Fubuki said.

"Other major problems with this team include its constantly changing lineup and short and erratic practices," Fudou continued. "Now, the goalkeeper – one of the longest-serving members of the team, mind you – is changed to a libero. The strategy now switches from defense to offense."

"Which should hopefully lead to more goals scored," Fubuki said quietly.

"Our offense is perfectly capable of getting the ball into the goal. Our midfield can get the ball to the offense," Fudou said sharply. "But our defense cannot stop Aliea. The only person who could was Endou, and now you've put him in an offensive position."

"We've opened up a huge gap in our defense," Gouenji said softly, eyebrows furrowed. Fubuki thought he heard Fudou mutter _'what defense?'_ but ignored him, thinking on the matter.

Fudou was right. Other than Shirou, no one had been able to stop Burn and Gazel and Shirou was hardly in the best condition. And even if he had been, well, Fubuki was only one person. He couldn't be everywhere at once.

Raimon's defense had crumpled like a wet tissue against Gaia. He could see it happening again, and though he felt bad to be thinking this, with Tachimukai in goal instead of Endou, the resulting defeat would be a lot more definitive.

"So what exactly would you suggest?" Ichinose's voice came from behind them and Fubuki glanced up to see Ichinose peering at them from the gap between Fudou's and Tachimukai's seat. Fudou looked startled at being addressed. He paused a moment, perhaps to make sure that Ichinose was really talking to him, before speaking.

"I'd add more to the defense. Five – no, six would be ideal." Fudou hesitated a moment, eyes flickering to Tachimukai and Fubuki before his face smoothed out. "Change our two-top to just Gouenji and move Aphrodi down to attacking midfield. Ichinose, Aphrodi and I form a ring of three around Kidou to support him, with us two in attacking midfield and Ichinose in defensive midfield."

"And instead of teaching Endou offensive _hissatsu_ techniques, teach him defensive ones," Ichinose mused. "That would increase our defensive capability, as well as take a lot of the burden off of Tachimukai's shoulders." He furrowed his forehead in thought. "Of course, Endou's position frees him up to go forward and take shots as well without totally compromising our defense."

"Why a one-top?" Gouenji asked lightly and calmly. Rather too calmly – Gouenji was doing this on purpose, well aware that any note of censure would cause Fudou to retreat back behind his silence. "Can't we keep Aphrodi as a forward?"

"And spread me, Ichinose and Kidou-kun out in the midfield? I thank you for the compliment, Gouenji," Fudou snorted, "but that space is too big for the three of us, especially if Ichinose has defense duty. I don't think that I could bring the ball up the field with only Kidou to assist. Aphrodi's Heaven's Time would be an asset in the midfield, and we all know that pretty boy is capable of hustling fast enough to catch up with you."

"Thank you, Fudou," Aphrodi's dry voice came from next to Ichinose, effectively breaking the pretense that no one was listening to them. Kabeyama, Kogure and Tsunami were all watching their discussion silently and with wide eyes, and Rika was forcibly holding Megane's mouth shut so that he wouldn't speak up. In the front, however, Endou was still holding court, and the managers were talking amongst themselves.

"That's a really aggressive strategy, though," Ichinose said, ignoring the awkward pause. "Aggressively conservative. Are you sure you want to take such a risk?"

"Strategies are thinly veiled risk-reward gambles," Fudou replied. "The whole point of strategy is to take risks. I'm well aware that Kidou-kun's been coddling you all this time, but Aliea's not going anywhere and we'll never get the upper hand if we don't _try_!"

He'd said the last part far too loud, breaking up Endou's discussion in the front right and turning seven curious faces towards their general direction.

Fubuki stared at the window innocently. He could hear Fudou slinking further back into his seat and, judging by the looks of confusion, everyone else was doing a good job in avoiding eye contact.

It was always one step forward, two steps back with Fudou, wasn't it?

* * *

Honestly, Fudou had been steadily freaking out ever since Kidou had announced that they were going to Teikoku. Actually, it was more like exponentially freaking out. He hadn't even realized Fubuki was calling him until Tachimukai elbowed him in the ribs.

That had actually hurt – perhaps Tachimukai was finally developing a spine. Fudou was a ruthless taskmaster, but at least Tachimukai had managed to conjure a glowing blue hand, even if it did nothing to stop Fudou's shots.

Unfortunately, Tachimukai's newfound courage would do nothing to change their destination. Fudou appreciated Fubuki's attempt to take his mind off of it – and didn't quite understand how everyone else got involved – but the instant his eyes met Kidou's, he remembered all over again.

Teikoku Academy. One of the premier schools in the country, boasting a student population consisting of the rich or the talented. Sometimes both. A football team that hadn't lost a match in fifty years, until Endou and Raimon came along.

A school that had been ruled completely by Kageyama Reiji, who used his influence to completely corrupt every aspect of football in Japan as his final vengeance against Endou Daisuke.

Fudou had followed Kageyama. He had _broken him out of jail_. He had recruited fifteen other people to follow the madman's insane plan and they had all paid the price.

He leaned back, feeling bile push against his throat as he remembered water rushing up, lapping at his shoes as he ran and ran and ran. He had been so frightened and so lost.

He'd nearly broken down into crying at the sight of his mother waiting at the police station. When the magnitude of what he'd done hit him, he actually did start crying.

He'd broken a _convicted felon_ out of jail and helped him amass weapons of mass destruction, even if the weapons were football players and the destruction rent through footballs.

And that was the impersonal side of it. He'd personally recruited Kidou-kun's closest friends and corrupted their anger and rage and betrayal until all that was left was the thirst for power. He had made sure that Shin Teikoku was a slap in the face for Raimon – a reminder that the higher you go, the harder you fall.

But _Fudou_ was the one who fell, and he had fallen hard. His stomach churned as he saw the spires of Teikoku in the distance and he closed his eyes, unable to take in the sight. But that just brought up the image of Sakuma staring into the distance, body contorted, a look of twisted agony on his face as he screamed and screamed. He saw Genda, hunched over on his knees, trying not to puke his guts up on the grass. He saw Kidou screaming at Kageyama with tears filling his goggles. He saw his teammates staring at him like he was the devil, and perhaps he was, because why else would he hate and lie and tear people's lives apart?

"Fudou-san?" Tachimukai said quietly, and that was enough to jolt him out from his daze. Fudou took a deep breath to settle his heart rate and resumed looking out of the window, ignoring the steel gray building that rose straight to the sky.

He could still see brown eyes bulging out against dark skin.

Tachimukai shifted a little closer. Perhaps he'd meant to do it unobtrusively, but Fudou saw the gesture and recognized it for what it was. He certainly did not lean into the movement, or use the warmth of Tachimukai's arm to chase away the smirking face that seemed seared into the back of his eyelids.

– "You're _the useless one!" –_

They exited off of the freeway, and suddenly the towers of Teikoku were much closer. They looked larger now that they were looking up, and Fudou felt faintly nauseous when he remembered the steel bars falling during Raimon's district final match against Teikoku.

It didn't seem like the other members of Raimon felt any better – Kabeyama kept shivering and Megane was adjusting his glasses every two seconds. Kidou was silent, staring out at the sharp points and hardened edges that he'd once called home.

There was a police car parked in front of the main entrance. Fudou's heart seized up at that, and he pressed himself far back into his seat. But at the next moment a student appeared and started running up to the caravan, waving at them with a big grin. It wasn't anyone Fudou recognized from Teikoku's football team, but it made sense that someone would have seen to their reception. This was still Kidou Yuuto, after all.

Royalty.

Fudou kept quiet and tried to calm himself as Raimon walked through empty halls. Kidou's light conversation with their escort, the restless muttering from the rest of Raimon, and the buzzing in his own head echoed all around him. Everything, from the pillars to the floor tiles to their escort's uniform, was much too close for comfort. It was clear where Kageyama had got his inspiration for Shin Teikoku from.

Another few turns in dimly lit halls and they stepped out into the bright sunlight. Fudou felt his heart stop. Those seats, the grass, the goalposts, the gray tower rising in the background –

"Fudou-san?" Tachimukai asked, and Fudou blinked, the image of Sakuma on the ground and Genda sobbing as smoke wafted in the air dissolving into the rich green grass and blue sky. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," Fudou said, but it came out as a croak. He cleared his throat and turned away. "Come on," he said, motioning to the empty side of the field, "let's start practicing."

* * *

It was difficult to think clearly on a field that felt so familiar, and even more difficult to practice with Kidou's shouted instructions in his ears, but Fudou turned his back on the rest of the team and faced Tachimukai in the goal.

"We have to match our movements," Kidou yelled behind him, and Fudou kicked the ball with a little too much force. Tachimukai lunged to catch it and missed.

"Still off center."

Fudou kicked again, careful to moderate his power. Something weird was happening with his kicks – power came out in bursts at times, and other times it didn't. Fudou resolved to figure out his unpredictable strength and watched impassively as the large blue hand shattered yet again.

"It took Teikoku a month to do this."

Fudou grit his teeth after accidentally overcompensating his kick and the ball rolled to a stop at Tachimukai's feet. Growling, he went to retrieve it – if Kidou couldn't see the obvious flaw in trying to recreate Death Zone, then Fudou was certainly not going to point it out.

He kicked again and watched as Tachimukai closed his eyes. His expression turned from annoyance that the younger boy wasn't taking the training seriously to surprise when Tachimukai actually caught the ball – that wasn't a _hissatsu_ technique, of course, but situational awareness was important in any football player.

Tachimukai's brief second of exultation turned to despair when he realized that Mugen the Hand had not worked.

"I am never going to figure this out," Tachimukai groaned, staring at the ball glumly.

"Don't be stupid," Fudou said with a snort. "You can't expect to get it right on the first try."

At least the technique wasn't like Emperor Penguin No. 1 – screwing that destructive technique up caused unimaginable pain. Still, Tachimukai was looking much too unhappy for his liking. Had he expected this to be _easy_?

"The Great Wall of China wasn't built in a day," Fudou snapped, using his mother's favorite saying. "It took thousands of people over hundreds of years, each adding to it in their own small way to create the gigantic defense. You haven't even been at Mugen the Hand for one day and you're already quitting?"

Instead of looking furious, like Fudou would have if someone had said that to him – honestly, anger was the emotion he had been going for – Tachimukai's expression rearranged itself into a wide, beaming smile, his eyes getting fired up as he punched the air.

"You're right, Fudou-san! I can't give up now!" He tossed the ball back to Fudou and took up a ready stance.

Fudou wondered whether Endou was an infectious disease.

Inwardly groaning at Tachimukai's sudden enthusiasm, Fudou kicked the ball again. And again. And again.

Judging by the curses behind him, Kidou was having about as much luck with Death Zone as Tachimukai was having with Mugen the Hand.

"Welcome back, Kidou. It's been a long time!"

Fudou swerved and the ball glanced off of the goal post. He _knew_ that voice. He'd recruited that voice, he'd played football with that voice, he'd listened to that voice's screams with the slowly dawning realization that everything was incredibly _wrong_ …

"Fudou-san?" Tachimukai asked quietly after he retrieved the ball. His wide eyes were darting from Fudou to further behind him, where he could hear Kidou talking with Sakuma and what seemed to be the rest of the Teikoku Eleven. "Is everything okay?"

But their attention was diverted when Kidou spoke.

"Sakuma!" he said, sounding happier than Fudou had ever heard him, which was actually a pretty low bar, to be honest. "And Genda! You look well. I'm glad you could all make it."

Sakuma chuckled, or at least it sounded like it, because Fudou was still resolutely not looking in his direction.

"Give us some credit, Kidou," he said. "Something like that isn't going to drop us for long."

Something like that? Something like _that_? Fudou could still see brown eyes bulging out against –

"Sorry to keep you waiting," Sakuma continued. His voice dropped, and, unconsciously, Fudou strained to hear the rest of his words. "We were actually with the police –"

Fudou's heart stopped.

"– sorting out some stuff. There was a break-in…" Sakuma trailed off. A few seconds later, he cleared his throat.

"Anyway! You don't need to hear about that. So you're Zeus' Aphrodi. Kidou told me what happened to you." Sakuma sounded neutral. "He said that Kageyama manipulated you like he manipulated us."

_Like I manipulated you._ Fudou felt sick to his stomach.

Aphrodi was as diplomatic as ever. "On behalf of my team, I apologize for the destruction we…"

Sakuma cut him off. "I wish you all the best in your fight against Aliea," he said, but rather than the bland formality Fudou expected from someone talking to their former enemy, Sakuma sounded sincere. He paused for a second and Fudou stifled the urge to turn around. He could feel red-brown eyes boring into his back. "And the same goes for everyone on your team."

Was Fudou imagining the slight emphasis on 'everyone'?

"So, shall we start a friendly?" Genda's deep voice rumbled over.

Oh, _no_ , please let Kidou not be this stupid, not _this time_ …

"Of course."

* * *

Kidou started giving instructions in a lower voice and the other members of Raimon were congregating around him, but Fudou was ready to run off the field and out of sight. He was calculating the space from his current position to the massive entranceway and wondered how much distance he could cross before he was caught.

But then he would be back in those cold hallways, like the hallways of Shin Teikoku. And without anyone by his side it would be all too easy to imagine the water lapping at his feet.

"Fudou," Ichinose said and Fudou turned to face him, muscles tensing. He flinched as he caught sight of steel-blue hair over Ichinose's shoulder (and focused his gaze on _anything_ but the crutches), but Ichinose ignored his movement. "We'd like you to be the playmaker for this match."

Fudou blinked at him. And again, when Ichinose didn't immediately crack a grin and do his stupid trademark pose. "Psyche!" he'd say, or "Yeah, right!", or something like that, and everyone would burst into laughter like in those comedian prank shows on TV. But no, Gouenji and Fubuki were a half-step behind Ichinose, clearly supporting his statement and Fudou stared at all of them in unconcealed disbelief.

"And what about Kidou-kun?" Fudou raised an eyebrow. "Or is he fine with me taking his place?"

"Kidou's playing for Teikoku," Gouenji said. "Along with Endou and Domon."

Wait, _what_?

Fudou looked past Gouenji and sure enough, Kidou was standing opposite them, clad in red and green. (Which meant he had been standing frozen for a lot longer than he thought. God, he needed to get a hold of himself!) Fudou resolutely ignored the sight of Sakuma on the sidelines, not too far away from him, and Genda leaning against the inside of the goalpost.

So he and Kidou were on opposing sides again. Brilliant.

"You want me to strategize against Teikoku," Fudou said flatly. _Against Kidou and Genda_ went unsaid.

"Yes," Ichinose said levelly, giving absolutely no indication that this was a cruel prank or some sort of revenge. "You're the best playmaker we have aside from Kidou."

And even that was debatable. Kidou had taken orders from Kageyama far too long to remember what to do on his own.

"Great," Fudou said, striding past Ichinose to enter the field. What was the curious feeling brewing in his chest? Did he _dare_? "Then we're using the formation we discussed on the way here."

There was no noise of dissent, no incredulous gasp, not even the slightest look of discontent as everyone got into position. Tachimukai settled into the goal, looking a little apprehensive. Touko, Rika, Fubuki, Kogure, Kabeyama, and Tsunami fanned out in front of him like a bizarre guard. Ichinose and Aphrodi took up the right and left side while Fudou stood in the middle, directly behind Gouenji.

The look of shock on Kidou's face was completely worth it.


	11. Chapter 11

Kidou resisted the urge to rub his eyes or pinch himself to prove that he wasn’t dreaming. The Raimon standing in front of him looked nothing like the Raimon he’d left just five minutes ago.

Aphrodi had moved back to midfield, leaving only Gouenji to head a one-top. The defense had been completely rearranged, leaving _six people_ in front of an apprehensive Tachimukai. And in the very center of the field with a shit-eating grin on his face was Fudou himself.

Kidou tried not to hate him. He knew what Kageyama was like, knew how he manipulated and corrupted the people around him. Shin Teikoku had not been Fudou’s fault, and Kidou knew this objectively.

But Fudou’s personality was his own choice and the arrogant midfielder had rubbed him the wrong way since they met. So if Fudou wanted to change Raimon’s entire formation, if he wanted to rub in the change like he’d rubbed Shin Teikoku in Kidou’s face, then Kidou was going to take extreme pleasure in defeating him.

Kidou met Fudou’s challenge, a wide grin spreading across his face to match Fudou's own. This match was going to be his revenge.

The whistle blew and Gouenji quickly kicked the ball back, passing it to Fudou. Kidou sped up after a few nods and glances to get Teikoku’s defense ready.

But Raimon was ready too. Gouenji slipped easily into the midfield (not worth pursuing; Teikoku's defense would handle him) and Aphrodi and Ichinose followed on both flanks. Fudou met the forwards, but instead of pushing forward, like Kidou expected, he passed.

Kidou could see the slightest hint of a smile as Fudou ran past him.

Aphrodi, Ichinose and Fudou controlled the ball running up, and while most of it was due to the fact that no one wanted to get close to Aphrodi, it really was an effective formation that made the most of their tight ball control skills. But just before Ichinose could pass, Domon leapt in for the steal.

Heh. Out of everybody on the field, he _was_ the one who knew Ichinose best.

The ball passed back up the field far more quickly than it had come down and Kidou allowed a grin of his own to cover his face. The defense moved up to meet him and Kidou sidestepped Touko, passing the ball without a thought. A second later, it was passed back and Kidou searched for Domon and Endou.

Both ran to his side and he kicked the ball straight up, lunging to follow it a moment later. They spun, perfectly in tandem, and kicked the ball. It gained a purple aura and flew towards the goal… only to lose its aura halfway through and bounce off the goal post.

“Don’t mind it,” Endou said cheerfully. “We’ll get it next time!”

Easy for him to say. Kidou frowned as Tachimukai picked up the ball and tossed it back into play. The timings had been perfect, or as near perfect as they could be. Death Zone should have worked.

He turned and found Fudou watching him, a superior smirk – no, it wasn't quite that – on his face. Kidou frowned and Fudou turned away.

* * *

Kidou had tried – and failed – Death Zone for the third time and Fudou was tempted to go over and tell him the solution to put him out of his misery. They had gone over it back in Shin Teikoku and had worked out a passable version of it with Hie at the lead, but had ultimately relegated it due to it needing three people when Emperor Penguin No. 1 did just fine with only one. Why Kidou was even trying to figure Death Zone out, Fudou didn’t know. However, he had more pressing issues at hand.

His strategy wasn’t working all that well. It _had_ been designed with Kidou and not Ichinose in midfield, and Rika wasn’t really supposed to be there at all – the girl was a good forward, but she sucked at defense – but the main problem was that Teikoku was much better than he thought.

They weren’t good like Aliea which relied on overwhelming offense, or like Oumihara, whose strength was in its midfield. Teikoku was just _good_ – their teamwork was excellent, their plays were executed perfectly, and Kidou fit right back in like he’d never left.

Okay, so possibly Fudou had not adjusted his strategy for dealing with a playmaker of Kidou’s intelligence and it was even more possible that Kidou was not, in fact, a useless tactician who had relied entirely on Kageyama’s advice. It was very likely that Fudou had underestimated Teikoku’s genius playmaker.

The defense had got over their fear of Aphrodi after Kidou had a word with them and now he couldn’t take a step without two Teikoku defenders blocking his path, much less support Gouenji properly. And while Ichinose was a decent forward, Genda was a better goalkeeper, and the Teikoku midfield passed the ball up the moment it left his hands.

In short, Fudou’s strategy was rather inelegantly collapsing around him.

In a small blessing that made him positive he wouldn’t be catching a break for a long time afterwards, Teikoku called a timeout and huddled on their side of the field. They were leading 1-0, so the discussion had to be about Death Zone. Fudou took full advantage of this distraction and called for a huddle of his own.

Surprisingly, everybody obeyed. Fudou looked at all the faces that were staring at _him_ and cleared his throat.

“This formation isn’t working,” he stated bluntly. Let it never be said that Fudou Akio wasn’t man enough to admit to his own mistakes.

“Right,” Ichinose agreed far too quickly and even Gouenji had a hint of relief in his eyes, though it was gone in the next minute. Fudou narrowed his eyes, but continued.

“So, we’re mixing up it again. Aphrodi, Rika, you’re both forwards. Touko, Tsunami, you’ll be joining me and Ichinose in the midfield. It's a 3-4-3.”

“Only three defenders?” Fubuki asked quietly. Kogure and Kabeyama looked a bit apprehensive.

“I have full confidence in you guys,” Fudou said truthfully, breaking up the huddle and looking Tachimukai straight in the eye. And he did. Against Teikoku, that was.

Fudou gave one last encouraging nod to Tachimukai – honestly, Mugen the Hand and Death Zone were the reasons for this friendly – before taking his position. And also perhaps reveling in Kidou’s shocked look again. He was nothing if not adaptable and a failed formation was sometimes more informative than a perfect one.

But first, they needed a goal.

The ball was thrown back into play and Fudou sped up, keeping stride with Rika as Aphrodi and Gouenji ran ahead. Teikoku adapted quickly to the changed formation – the two strikers were quickly marked and Domon sped towards Rika, his foot already glowing for Killer Slide.

But Rika was in her element as a forward. She jumped before Domon reached her and shot a pass to Fudou in midair. Fudou took a moment to gawk at her – he, like everyone else, had been under the impression that it was far too much of a hassle to tell the flirty forward to leave, rather than her possessing any actual skill – before accepting the pass and heading towards the goal.

This was the first time in the game that he’d been so close to the goal and the trepidation that Fudou had momentarily buried reared its ugly head the moment he looked up from the ball and caught Genda’s cold gaze.

Fudou hesitated a step before looking away and back-passing to Rika. The girl had clearly not expected that, and nearly tripped over the ball, inadvertently sending it to a Teikoku defender. She gave him a surprised look as they both turned back to defense.

“What was that?”

Fudou pretended not to hear her.

He knew perfectly well what _that_ was, but there was nothing wrong in not wanting to kick the ball at someone whose life he’d ruined. And it had nothing to do with the afterimage of Beast Fang that Fudou saw every time he looked at Genda’s face.

Luckily, Rika dropped it as they ran back. Kidou, Domon and Endou had already run ahead and with a swift kick, they were spinning in the air. Perfectly in tandem. _Again_.

For a genius, Kidou could be a real idiot.

Needless to say, Death Zone failed again, the ball shooting above the goal and out-of-bounds. Tachimukai quickly retrieved it and, after a short moment of consideration, threw it back into play. Touko handed it up to Ichinose, who passed it to Fudou, who steadily dribbled the ball up. Raimon had counterattacked so swiftly that half of Teikoku was on the wrong side of the field and Fudou had no trouble holding on to the ball as he neared the goal.

He didn’t even look at Genda, but passed the ball to Gouenji, who attempted to shoot. Unfortunately, the ball was stolen by one of the two defenders still marking him and Fudou did an about-turn, huffing, to go on defense.

Gouenji didn’t say anything about the failed pass, but as they both ran back a small frown crossed his face. Even Aphrodi didn’t look pleased. Fudou managed to convince himself that they were both sulking about the double-team and sped up, almost missing the loaded glance between the two of them.

Kidou again kicked the ball up and this time, Fudou gave in to the urge to facepalm. _Such_ an idiot. Touko trapped the ball before it flew off the field and Raimon’s counterattack began yet again.

Fudou appreciated that his teammates were passing the ball to him and not completely ignoring him as they’d done for most of the Aliea matches, but honestly, he was getting a little tired of finding himself in front of the goal with no one to pass to. Avoiding Genda’s gaze – Beast Fang and the pain in his eyes and the sound of Sakuma screaming which never ever went away – Fudou looked around.

Rika was too far away and Aphrodi looked resigned to his position behind two hulking defenders. Gouenji, however, struggled to get free of his marks and the moment he had a foot out, Fudou made the pass. Of course, Teikoku’s defenders weren’t slouches and both defenders quickly tried to cover the flame striker again. In the chaos, the ball was kicked out-of-bounds.

Fudou groaned inwardly as Teikoku’s offense and the rest of Raimon’s midfield jogged back in. He hated ball tosses – while it was Raimon's ball, the pause in play had given Teikoku a chance to catch up on defense. The tide could quickly turn either way and judging by Teikoku’s skill in choosing their marks, he doubted it would be Raimon’s.

Fudou snapped back to earth when he heard Aphrodi shout. “Gouenji!” Aphrodi cried out in alarm and Fudou searched for the striker –

And promptly ducked, shock and anger churning in his stomach as Fire Tornado blazed a few inches over his head. Fudou stayed on the ground as he heard the ball slam into the bleachers behind him. When he got up, there was far more anger than shock in his system, though one part of his brain still asked _why?_

He saw one of the Teikoku players run off the field to retrieve the ball. Kidou had his usual indecipherable expression and Endou was frowning, but Aphrodi was staring at Gouenji with slack-jawed surprise and even Sakuma, on the bench at the other side of the field, had his gaze fixed onto Gouenji’s back.

Gouenji, who was at this moment advancing on Fudou with narrowed eyes and an expression that suggested that he was thinking of kicking another Fire Tornado straight into Fudou’s gut. Fudou’s anger flared up, throbbing in time to his fear, and the moment Gouenji stepped within hissing distance, Fudou spoke.

“What the _hell_?”

Gouenji’s scowl deepened. “I think I should be asking that. Get a hold of yourself.”

“That's exactly what I should be saying to you! We can't afford to let any chances go –”

“No,” Gouenji interrupted him. “We can't.”

The whistle to restart play blew, and Gouenji jogged away to defend against the Teikoku offense. Fudou was only afforded a few more seconds of righteous indignation before he sped off to do the same.

* * *

At least Kidou and the others failing Death Zone so much gave him a chance to catch a breath and calm down. This was just a friendly, in Teikoku to boot, so letting his temper get the better of him would only end in disaster. Best case scenario, he’d mouth off and reconfirm everyone’s bad impressions of him. Worst case scenario…

Fudou shuddered as the acrid smell of smoke and the figures slumped on the grass flashed by yet again.

He’d stopped passing to Gouenji after his previous attempt at murder. It was half-instinctive, him not wanting to taste another Fire Tornado after all, but it would also be lying to say that some part of it wasn’t on purpose. If Gouenji was going to be uncooperative, Fudou would just direct the offense where it would actually work. And it wasn’t like Raimon hadn’t operated with a two-top or even a one-top before.

Plus, his efforts earlier had changed the field. Slowly, but surely, the Teikoku defense had reacted to his focus on Gouenji and drifted over to cover the striker. It would take quite some time for the Teikoku defense to catch on, maybe even until the end of the half if Fudou was lucky. All he had to do was fake a pass to Gouenji, and the defenders would be on him like bees on honey.

His eyes fell on Rika drifting up the right, barely marked despite being within striking distance, and one side of his mouth cracked upwards.

Gouenji was, as he expected, advancing up the left side of the field, being escorted warily by two large defenders. Fudou turned to him and drew his foot back, noting with satisfaction as the two defenders in the middle of the field who were keeping an eye on Aphrodi wavered. That was enough.

“Aphrodi!” Fudou yelled, then sent the ball neatly to Rika, who received it with the barest of fumbles. That was impressive, considering he hadn’t worked this play out with any of the forwards before trying it just now. Acknowledging his pass with a nod and a grin, she turned and zoomed up the lane that the defenders, still recovering from committing to Gouenji and Aphrodi, were too slow to reclaim.

“Touko!” she yelled, then leaped into the air without even looking to see if her partner was following up.

Of course, Touko was already there. “On it!”

“Butterfly Dream!” the two girls declared as they took each other’s hands, never once removing their eyes from the ball as they punted it towards the goal.

Genda was ready and waiting, of course.

“Full Power Shield,” he said simply, looking not at the ball, but at Fudou, as he crossed both arms flat against his chest. His gaze lasted only a second before he focused his energy and followed Rika and Touko high up into the air. But Genda’s expression had been steely, burning with an unsaid promise, backed up not only by the power of his team but also by the strength coursing through his veins.

It was like he’d never been injured. Fudou tensed and looked away.

Genda’s _hissatsu_ technique held, of course, and the ball ricocheted off the shield, landing at the feet of a Teikoku defender. Of course. After all their time spent playing together, Fudou would eat his temple charm if Teikoku couldn’t predict the exact angle of deflection in every possible situation. The ball was passed back to a beckoning Genda and Teikoku spread out, ready to start their offense.

Fudou was already running up, throwing glances backwards every so often to reconfirm the position of Teikoku’s players. But the ball didn’t get anywhere near him this time, instead going up the flank. The Teikoku midfield easily passed their way past Rika, Touko, and Tsunami, before sending the ball careening to the other side of the field, where Kidou, Endou, and Domon were ready and waiting.

Death Zone. Except it was _Teikoku’s_ Death Zone. Rinse and repeat. Fudou found himself looking at Tachimukai instead, watching as he yelled out the words from the notebook, hoping for something to happen.

Again, nothing did. A frown tugged down Fudou’s face, even as Tachimukai neatly caught the ball. Kidou’s look of frustration intensified, Endou shouted increasingly unconvincing encouragements, and Fudou and Ichinose started another attack.

They spread out, weaving up the field in their forwards’ wake. The shadow of all the plays he could make appeared wherever Fudou looked, his brain calculating and following each possibility to the end. With Ichinose handling the ball on his left, and Touko somewhere behind him, there were plenty of ways he could get the ball to the best position for the strikers and get it into Teikoku’s goal.

It wouldn’t be easy. Teikoku’s 5-man defense was a formidable wall. But today they were playing half-heartedly, more focused on Kidou than on the team they were actually playing against. And Fudou had molded them. He’d kick himself if he didn’t manage to break that wall down at least once in these circumstances.

But as he neared the defense that was forming against their advance, he cursed.

How? How had Kidou done it? He had practically spent most of his time on the field wasting his time on this farce of a Death Zone with Endou and Domon. Fudou didn’t think that he had even spent a second on defense.

So _how_ had he managed to convey his instructions – because there was no doubt that this was his work, and his work only – and reset Teikoku’s defense?

No longer were the defense mobbing Gouenji. Instead, two players stood between Rika and Aphrodi, and three between Aphrodi and Gouenji. Wherever the forwards went, the defenders followed, like a swelling wave. It was like looking at a brick wall.

“Fudou!”

He snapped back his head at Ichinose’s shout, and his pass sailed over to Fudou’s feet… and past them. Fudou cursed again, louder this time, as he pushed himself to catch the ball that was rapidly barreling forwards. It wasn’t like Ichinose to miss a pass like that. He looked left, then right – no, no space at all, everyone was tightly marked –

“In front of you!” someone – Aphrodi – yelled, and Fudou reacted purely on instinct, knocking the ball back to Ichinose with his heel. But at the next moment, a green shirt darted between them, and Fudou realized his mistake.

The defense swept past him, leaving Fudou and Raimon’s strikers in the dust. Fudou started doubling back, managing to catch up to Ichinose, but it was too little, too late. Teikoku launched the ball into the air, and Kidou, Domon, and Endou followed.

The shot faltered halfway again, as expected, and Tachimukai grabbed it out of the air. Almost immediately afterwards came the high-pitched squeal of the whistle, signaling that the entire half’s effort had been for nothing.

* * *

Fudou grit his teeth and jogged back to the bench, intent on checking up on how everyone was doing. There was still one half left for him to work his magic, after all. And who knows, maybe Kidou might finally get a clue, or Tachimukai might get a breakthrough.

A hand fell on his shoulder. Fudou jerked back, fully intent on giving a piece of his mind to whoever had the nerve, and caught sight of sleek golden hair.

Aphrodi’s expression was grim, and that gave Fudou pause.

“Look,” Fudou said, “I know we didn’t manage to score, but it wasn’t that bad.”

“You’re holding back.” Aphrodi delivered his judgement in one fell swoop, like he hadn’t been listening to what Fudou had to say. (He probably hadn’t.)

The rest of his team had reached the bench. Fudou could tell that they had noticed something was up, but he turned away from their curious glances and faced Aphrodi fully. “What are you talking about?”

Aphrodi regarded him, his gaze growing thoughtful.

“Pardon me for being presumptuous, but you’re not playing like you did in the Diamond Dust match. Not at all.”

Fudou raised an eyebrow.

Aphrodi’s next line was irritatingly gentle. “There’s no need to be caught up in the past.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Fudou snapped, then stopped. But it was too late to take back the words now.

Aphrodi’s lips curved up into a small, amused smile. (If Fudou had been in his place, he didn’t know how he would have reacted, but it would have been, at the very least, much more physical.) “I do,” was all he needed to say.

With difficulty, Fudou held his tongue. An instinctive retort bubbled up, but his brain was catching up with him now, and he was cool enough not to let it escape.

Because… of course. Of course Aphrodi did. Their enabler had been different, but the end result, and the mastermind, had been the same.

Fudou suddenly felt horrible for ever having wished that Aphrodi’s assimilation into the team would go badly. Shock, then respect flowed through him as he realized that Aphrodi had been making his mark and facing his opponents just fine on Teikoku’s pitch. It wasn’t the same, of course. Fudou had seen Zeus’ stadium on TV, and it hadn’t been a carbon copy of Teikoku’s. There wasn't the constant similarity in his face to force the flashbacks.

But Fudou had only wrecked two of Teikoku’s players, and one was on the bench. Aphrodi’s team had sent eleven to hospital. He had faced almost all of them in the past half.

“Yeah,” Fudou said. “You're right.” It was all he could think to say.

The smile on Aphrodi's face faded. He sighed, suddenly looking ten years older, and dropped his hand back down to his waist. “Of course, you’re a midfielder, and the playmaker. No one wants you to shoot recklessly.”

Then he smirked and it was like his arrogance had never left. “Just leave that to Gouenji, Urabe-san, and I.”

“Hell no,” Fudou said. “You’ll be taking only high-probability shots from the safest spots if I have any say in it.”

Aphrodi straightened up. “You’re doing fine, Fudou. You just can’t ignore chances in front of you. The field in front of you was wide open just now, before they intercepted your pass back to Ichinose. You should have attacked. It’s the respectful thing to do.”

Fudou nodded, accepting his advice, and Aphrodi clapped him on the back. Fudou continued to mull over his words as they walked back to the bench together. He didn’t fully agree with everything, hell, he didn’t really know what he thought of it, with all the images and sounds still jostling for airtime in his head, but he was closer. He could tell that much.

They neared the team, who had started their half-time discussions without them. Ichinose and Gouenji were talking, surrounded by over half the team, and Kogure was doing stretches while paying attention to the conversation. At the edge of the bench, a nervous Tachimukai was being comforted by an entirely too-casual-looking Tsunami. Fudou smirked, tuned out of all the noise, and clapped his hands.

Everyone turned to face him.

“All right, that half was awful,” Fudou said, making eye contact with everyone. “Here’s what we’re going to do…”


	12. Chapter 12

Five minutes into the second half and Kidou was already shaking his head.

Death Zone was clearly not working. It hadn’t been working from the start of the game, and they weren’t getting any closer to figuring out why. Kidou had done everything perfectly, had got Endou and Domon to do the same and still nothing clicked. It had taken Teikoku less time and they had invented the _hissatsu_ technique.

He met Endou’s and Domon’s gazes and turned his grimace up into what he hoped looked like a determined grin, before running back up to help the defense. At least Teikoku was still leading against Fudou and the rest of Raimon, though Kidou didn’t know whether to be proud of Teikoku or despairing for Raimon at that fact. Probably a little bit of both.

Fudou had been crafty throughout the whole first half, completely overhauling the formation in what must have been a mind trick to shock Teikoku’s defense into reacting. He’d probably hoped to take advantage of the ensuing confusion. Between that and his sly passes and attempts at misdirection, Kidou could see how he had attracted Kageyama’s attention.

But Teikoku had seen it all a hundred times before. With forty years of championship history behind their belt (no matter that it wasn’t current), they wouldn’t desert their game-winning traditions so easily.

Everybody had weaknesses to exploit, and a look had been all Kidou needed to direct Teikoku towards Fudou’s. He was impulsive and arrogant, and took too long to abandon ineffective strategies. Save for Emperor Penguin No. 1 (and here a pang struck Kidou’s heart), his shooting ability was unremarkable. Seal the forwards and Fudou was contained.

A large part of Kidou relished in destroying Fudou’s arrogance. Kidou had always been the better playmaker.

Kidou ran up to just past the half-way line, assessing his defense coolly. They moved like clockwork, the way they shifted and reacted to the undulation of the ball and enemy forwards seemingly automatic. The moment Kidou noticed a Raimon forward break free, the closest Teikoku defender was already running to smother him or her. Fudou would have his hands full trying to get past this, and even if that happened he would have the King of Goalkeepers to face next.

But Kidou also knew that if anyone on Raimon had a chance of getting past this defense, it was Fudou Akio. Kidou didn’t intend to ever become incapacitated in this fight against Aliea, but if he was, Fudou was probably the best person in the caravan to replace him. He was a hard worker and a quick learner. His ball control and passing skills were among the best in the team. And, though these moments were few and far between, when it truly mattered, he was almost inhumanly capable of doing just the right thing to pull Raimon through.

He watched as Fudou and Gojou stared at each other, one tense and watchful, the other grinning and completely inscrutable behind his glasses. The ball had not moved from Fudou’s feet in almost twenty seconds. Gojou had not strayed from his position marking Rika, because once he did Fudou would lob the ball past them and trust Rika to get to it. But Fudou had not pushed forward either.

In a few more seconds, the fragile balance on the pitch would crack and one of the Teikoku defense would try their luck and lunge for Fudou.

Kidou had outlined Fudou’s weaknesses earlier in his analysis, leaving out only one. It was so obvious that no one needed to mention it and every player, whether Raimon or Teikoku, had already picked up on it.

It was regrettable, but it had only been a problem since they arrived at Teikoku. And if Kidou was right about it (and of course he was), it would cease to become a problem once they played any other opponent. Kidou didn’t know how to address it – didn’t even know if he should address it. Genda’s carefully blank expression spoke about his feelings on the matter.

Then Fudou started forward, stumbling into a quickening jog, and for the first time this game Kidou felt a flash of surprise. Was he actually going to shoot?

The defenders clearly hadn’t expected it either, and they collapsed in on him, two or three leaving their places to stop the lone charge. Raimon’s forwards spread out like petals of a flower in bloom. Fudou headed right, half-trying to evade his new marks, but also half-intending to draw them out. Teikoku’s defense fell into tatters and in the confusion, he drew his foot back and sent the ball flying to Gouenji.

A wry smile tugged up Kidou’s lips. That extremely straightforward bit of football had achieved what half a game’s worth of tricks couldn’t.

Gouenji received the ball, but instead of spinning up into the air, he jumped up and summoned so much power that Kidou could practically see the air around him glow and hear the wind rush in with a roar. Launching into the air, Gouenji slammed the ball down with his heel towards Genda and the goal.

“Bakunetsu Storm!”

Oh. This must be the new move he’d mentioned. Okinawa had clearly been good for him in more than one way. But why was Gouenji only using it now, when Fudou was the playmaker?

Kidou ignored the flash of jealousy and considered the matter rationally. Gouenji wasn’t the type to save his arsenal. Which meant that this was the first time he’d had the chance. Kidou had to pay better attention to things like that – he was Raimon’s playmaker and it was his job to showcase everyone’s talents. He couldn’t afford to mess up like that again.

Who knew what Bakunetsu Storm could’ve done against Gazel?

The ball flew past Genda, but Kidou’s attention was back on Fudou. It would be easy to say that their opponent had been lax on Gouenji, but that would be unfair not just to Teikoku, but also to Fudou. He may have watched Fudou for longer than he really should have, because the midfielder turned and sent him a sardonic grin. Even from the distance, Kidou could see that it was missing some of its usual bite.

Despite everyone’s misgivings, Fudou had managed to carve out a place in Raimon. Sport had a way of baring your soul to those around, and you had to blind to not notice and respect the sheer effort Fudou put in. His caustic personality was unbearable, but Kidou could learn to treat it as just another part of the Raimon melting pot.

Trying to keep so many different personalities together without tempers flaring and egos clashing was so much work. He wondered how Kageyama had managed, for a moment, before ruthlessly suppressing that train of thought. It didn’t matter what Kageyama had done. Kidou was done following in that man’s footsteps.

He ignored the green and red uniform and retook his position before play restarted. He caught sight of steel blue hair near the sidelines and remembered his conversation with Sakuma at halftime.

“Your plays are more like you than when you’re with Teikoku,” Sakuma had said. Kidou had nodded and smiled, but the words wouldn’t leave his mind. More like him? How was that possible? He had been groomed for Teikoku ever since Kageyama had plucked him out of the orphanage. Except for kicking around with Haruna in the dirt, Kidou didn’t remember a time when his soccer hadn’t been influenced by Teikoku.

The ball reached him, and plans for the next attack pushed everything else away. Kidou passed to Jimon and exchanged nods with Domon and Endou as they sped, once again, for the goal.

But as they rose into the air, Sakuma’s words slipped into his thoughts once more. Raimon wasn’t like Teikoku – like Kageyama – which demanded conformity to excel. It had taken in players from all over Japan, all with wildly different backgrounds and philosophies. But it didn’t seek to suppress the deviations and mold them into a force with one body and mind. Instead, it took the best part of every player and combined them to create something more.

They started to spin. Kidou’s brow creased when he realized that he had started slightly late. He increased his speed to catch up to the others, and that was when it hit him.

“Spin faster!” he yelled, and again when it wasn’t enough. Endou and Domon obeyed his instructions immediately, and the world whirled so fast that Kidou could barely see the ball.

Cool energy coursed through Kidou’s veins. For the first time this game, he dared to hope.

“Death Zone 2!” the trio shouted, and the ball blazed into the net. Tachimukai’s eyes had shut against the blast and he had dug his toes deep into the grass just in time to stop himself from being thrown back.

Kidou, Domon, and Endou rode out their spin and landed onto a silent field. Panting, they exchanged wild, triumphant grins as both teams erupted into celebration. As he exchanged a high-five with Jimon, Kidou found himself looking out for Fudou, because as much as he loathed to admit it, it had been the snarky playmaker who had led him to the solution.

He made eye contact with a smiling Sakuma instead, and was about to run up and thank him when the ground jolted and everything disappeared in a flash of white.

* * *

The light cleared almost immediately to reveal – who else? – Aliea Academy standing amidst the smoke and rubble.

The good news was that it wasn’t anyone new. They hadn’t seen any new faces in quite a while now and Fudou was beginning to dare to hope that they had reached the end of what Aliea had to offer. Not that they were at the end of the road yet – Burn and Prominence were formidable even when they’d played at a fraction of their power and Gran and Gaia still gave Raimon nightmares.

The bad news was the crooked smirk, the flaming red hair, and the taunting yellow eyes that immediately soured his mood.

It was Burn, Fudou’s least favourite Aliea captain (and that was really quite a feat, considering how horribly Gran treated anyone who wasn’t Endou and what Gazel had tried to do to Fudou). He had brought the rest of his team.

“Prominence challenges Raimon to a match,” Burn declared, turning to Endou and jabbing one finger at him. He hadn’t even so much as glanced at Fudou and that pissed Fudou off all the more. So he suddenly wasn’t good enough for the Aliea captain, despite being the only player that had managed to mark him properly? “You have ten minutes to prepare.”

He drew back and folded his arms, a smug smile on his face as if he had just done Raimon a huge favor. A million retorts ran through Fudou’s mind, but he vocalized none of them. Nobody here would appreciate any of them anyway. Raimon was starting to accept Fudou the player, but there still wasn’t room for Fudou the person.

“As expected of Aliea Academy.” Kidou was the first to speak, but there was an edge to his tone that made Fudou pause and take note. The blast had knocked many of those nearby to the ground, and while most were back up on their feet, Sakuma was leaning onto Kidou for support. Fudou grit his teeth and looked away, but Kidou continued smoothly even as Sakuma held onto him.

“Destroying pitches without regard for the safety of those around as usual. Apologize. There are injured people here.”

“If you want to stop us, you’ll have to fight us,” Burn said, barely glancing at them both. “I don’t apologize to the weak.”

Fudou’s heart stopped for a beat before picking up at a furious pace. Weak? Weak? Being able to shoot Emperor Penguin No. 1 three times was a testament to the skill of Teikoku’s striker and here Burn stood, calling Sakuma weak. Fudou narrowed his eyes as his heart pumped power through every vein in his body. Maybe Burn should try blocking Emperor Penguin No. 1 before he started spouting off nonsense.

Kidou had stilled, his only reaction a deliberately slow tightening of the mouth, but underneath that Fudou thought he saw a glimpse of just how terrifying Captain Kidou of Teikoku Academy had once been.

“We can’t play you now.” The jubilant grin that had been on Endou’s face just a minute earlier was completely wiped away, a steely frown replacing it. “We just played Teikoku. The team’s not rested.”

“That,” Burn said with a slow, insolent roll of his shoulders, “is your problem, not mine.” A few more seconds passed, and only then did he straighten up, looking at the determined faces of the Raimon members. He skipped over Fudou entirely and Fudou felt his anger grow.

“Seems like you’re gonna need some convincing.” He stretched out both arms above and behind him, the ensuing cracks jarring in the silence. “I know just the thing.”

He pointed at Gouenji. “You, Raimon’s ace striker. You thought you were so crafty in Okinawa, but I happen to know where your sister is playing with her friends right now. The skies are clear, but it might be raining black soccer balls soon enough.”

Burn didn’t wait for Gouenji to react and moved on to Fubuki. “You. The crazy defender with the nervous breakdowns. Hakuren Junior High is lovely this time of year, I hear. Too much snow for my tastes, but I’m sure we can fix that.”

He moved on, covering most of Raimon’s players in turn, and if it weren’t for the threats and the sheer unpleasantness of the person making them, Fudou would have been thrilled to hear more about all the different parts of Japan his teammates had been plucked from. As it was, he could only stand frozen in place, watching as first Gouenji, then Fubuki, then the rest widened their eyes in sheer horror, fear and anger vying for equal space.

“We’re simply brimming with energy,” Burn finished, and the edge of his mouth had a mocking slant that Fudou wanted to simply punch off. He could do it, too, and fuck the consequences. His heartbeat pulsed in agreement, but Fudou wrestled it down. “So if you can’t oblige us here, we might have to take our soccer... elsewhere.”

Burn hadn’t included Fudou in his threats. It wasn’t surprising. After what had happened at Shin Teikoku, Fudou had nearly nothing left to lose.

“Not letting us recover to our full strength is hardly being sporting,” Kidou sneered. Burn had made a suggestive comment about Haruna which had further raised the playmaker’s ire. “You’d think the so-called top team of Aliea Academy would want to test themselves against our full strength.”

Fudou’s opinion of Kidou continued its steady rise. Who knew that all Kidou had to do to become more likeable was shed his goody-goody skin? Kageyama had clearly been of more influence than Fudou had thought.

“I never said that,” Burn said. “That wishy-washy fairness and sportsmanship stuff was always more of Gran’s thing.” He threw one arm out to the side in a wild, dismissive gesture. “All I want with you is to burn you to ashes!”

* * *

They couldn’t use the pitch they were currently standing on as Burn had destroyed it with his flashy entrance. But that was fine because apparently Teikoku had seven more.

Fudou muttered more than one uncomplimentary thing about rich kids and overcompensation.

Raimon assembled at one of the benches on Pitch 3. Most of the players were sitting either on the grass or the bench, trying to get as much rest as they could before their few minutes were up. A few were stretching to ease their fatigued muscles. They were all trying, and most were failing, to ignore the Prominence members already stood in position on the field. It was an unusually somber situation as everyone’s face battled equal amounts of terror and rage.

Gouenji’s face was a mask of fury and Fubuki stared blankly into space, his hands shaking. Kidou’s face was perfectly blank as he stood ramrod still. Endou couldn’t seem to decide whether to clench or relax his fists while staring in Burn’s general direction. With a few carefully chosen sentences, Burn had destroyed Raimon’s euphoria. It was a chilling reminder that Aliea didn’t play by the rules.

Prominence were using the same 4-4-2 formation as before. If Raimon wanted to be prudent (and they should, considering the handicap they were starting from), they would take advantage of this information and switch to a formation that could take advantage of the gaps there, like maybe a 3-5-2...

“We’ll be using the same 4-4-2 diamond formation as always,” Hitomiko said.

Well, so much for that, then. Because that had worked so well the last time they’d played Prominence. But Coach Hitomiko was the boss. Fudou would just have to figure out a way to make things work. Preferably a plan that didn’t end up with him being strangled by a psychotic captain.

“Kidou, Domon, Endou, we will base our attack around the Death Zone 2 _hissatsu_ technique you just created,” Hitomiko continued. “Tachimukai is in goal. Defense will be Kabeyama, Endou, Tsunami, Fubuki. Midfielders are Touko at back, Domon, Kidou, Ichinose. Forwards are Gouenji and Aphrodi.”

Fudou realized he wasn’t in the starting eleven at just about the same moment everyone else did. He ignored the surprised glances and jumped up to his feet.

“Why am I not starting?” he demanded. The sneer of ‘weak’ still echoed in his ears.

Coach Hitomiko didn’t even bat an eyelid. “Domon is moving up to help the Death Zone strategy run smoother. It was between you and Ichinose, and judging from the game earlier, Ichinose seems to be in better condition today.”

She thought he was in bad condition? He, who had got past two of Teikoku’s defenders and then got an assist on the equalizer not even ten minutes ago? He, the only person on Raimon who had ever been able to steal the ball from Burn?

“I can do better than Ichinose,” he said, ignoring even more vehemently the gasps that came from beside him. He stepped forward and looked Hitomiko in the eye. “Don’t sit me out. I marked Burn the last game, and I know better than Ichinose how the Death Zone works. I’m a better fit for this game and this strategy.”

“You shouldn’t get mad just because Coach wants you to sit out,” Kabeyama protested. “I’ve been benched the last two games and I never said anything.”

Fudou turned to him and, mercifully, managed to curb his tongue at the last moment. Still, Kabeyama shrank back, giving him no doubts as to how fierce he looked.

“Fudou’s got a point, Coach,” Ichinose’s voice came from behind to his right, and Fudou froze. His brain was beginning to catch up to what he was doing, and he was vividly aware of his heartbeat, thumping between his ears like a chopping knife on a board.

Next to Kabeyama, Domon shrugged. He threw Fudou an encouraging, if uneasy, grin. “I’m the one playing out of position here. I can take Ichinose’s place, it’s no big deal.”

Fudou turned back to Hitomiko and attempted to smooth over his scowl. She looked away, glancing over the whole team, and her mouth creased downwards. At least she was considering it.

As they made eye contact again, her gaze stilled and she seemed to come to a decision.

“Very well,” she said, and while Fudou didn’t know what he’d expected to feel upon hearing that, the weight pulling down his heart was definitely not it. Uneasiness gripped him as he started to regret his words. “You will play in place of Ichinose. But if I have any doubts as to whether you’ll be able to perform, I will take you out. Is that clear?”

Fudou swallowed. It did nothing to help the sudden dryness of his throat.

“Fine.”

He was playing against Burn again. He was playing against arguably the single most dangerous player Aliea had to offer, and he had just begged to mark him.

This ranked up high on Fudou’s spectacularly long list of bad decisions.


	13. Chapter 13

****Hitomiko eyed her students as they moved towards their positions, grim looks on all their faces. Endou had tried to put a smile on his, but he too was remembering the blatant threats that Burn had given them.

Prominence wanted a dirty game and it looked like they were going to get one. Raimon couldn’t keep their tempers at the best of times, and they had already been frayed by the Teikoku game hitting too close to home.

Hitomiko looked at Burn, her eyes boring into his back, practically daring him to turn around. She had failed Nagumo Haruya when she’d quit the Sun Orphanage. Failed him and all his teammates when she’d decided to turn her back on her father’s plans.

She could’ve stopped her father. She could’ve called the police. But she hadn’t and now she was paying the price of her mistakes.

It seemed like she’d never learn from them. She could see Fubuki staring at the ground, afraid that taking a lead would unleash Atsuya again and afraid that being Shirou wouldn’t be enough. Kazemaru and Kurimatsu, who had left the team as shells of their former selves because she’d thrown Raimon into a match they hadn’t been ready for. And Fudou, who walked out onto the field like a prisoner to the gallows because for all his bravado he was still terrified of Burn. Still influenced what she knew hung around his neck.

Hitomiko sighed and leaned back. No matter the outcome, this match was destined to be a trainwreck.

* * *

Fudou regretted stepping onto the field the moment he saw Burn’s smirk. The red-hot striker had ignored his presence all throughout his trash-talking, but the moment that Fudou took up his position on left flank – the same position he’d played last time they fought Prominence – Burn’s face twisted into an expression of gleeful joy.

The expression suggested a child reclaiming his favorite toy. Fudou did not like the undertone of possession in Burn’s gaze.

The Prominence captain deliberately slid his eyes down to the center of Fudou’s chest, where the temple charm hung above his heart. The charm pulsed once, and for a moment, purple swept across Fudou’s vision.

Then the strange light was gone and there was a smirk on Burn’s face. “I will _break_ you,” Burn hissed, a whisper that carried only to Fudou’s ears.

Fudou fought the urge to turn away from those yellow cat eyes, to turn away from Prominence, to turn away from this game. He had, after all, pissed off a large number of people while arguing for his spot on the field. It would be useless if he didn’t play.

“Fudou,” Kidou called out his name and Fudou was so surprised he actually turned around. Kidou looked at him with the same frowny face he always had, but Fudou had a feeling that this time, it wasn’t directed at him. Burn watched the two of them with a half-amused smirk on his face.

“Coach Hitomiko was right,” Kidou said bluntly. Fudou was still too surprised that Kidou was willingly talking to him to react to the insult. “Your head wasn’t in the game at all and you were passing up easy opportunities.”

Fudou bristled, shock giving way to anger. Who was Kidou to tell him that he was passing up opportunities? Fudou had fought to claw open every opening in Teikoku – in _Kidou_ – and he resented the implication that he hadn’t played his best.

Even if a dark corner of his heart brought up the image of a snarling beast every time he saw a Teikoku uniform.

“But I understand why,” Kidou spoke over Fudou’s derailed train of thought, and Fudou jolted. How did Kidou–? “And I trust it won’t happen again.”

Burn was paying far too much attention to their conversation now, and Fudou poured every inch of his desperation into a sneer. “Was that all, Kidou-kun?”

Kidou paused, his eyes unreadable behind his tinted goggles. Blankness replaced his frown and he jogged back to his position. Fudou was left standing frozen in place, wondering if he actually was that easy to read. He turned back to face the field, which also meant turning back to face Burn, whose steadily growing grin promised pain.

His heart pulsed in tune to his rising panic.

* * *

A few minutes into the game and it was clear that this was a far different Prominence to the one they’d faced before. This team was fast – not as fast as Gaia, who were on a completely different level – but fast enough that Kidou had to sprint to keep up. Burn stayed on the left flank, his intense gaze still focused on Fudou, but the rest of the team more than made up for the difference.

This was not the Prominence that had arrived in Okinawa to test the Inazuma Caravan. This was the Prominence that had appeared to destroy them.

– “ _You. Raimon’s greatest strategist. That’s your sister, isn’t it, on the sidelines? I wonder if she could handle my heat.” –_

Kidou clenched his fists tighter, until his fingernails dug into his palms. He took a few deep breaths and sought to regain control of himself. Psyching out opponents was nothing new. He himself had reduced many of Teikoku’s opponents to sobbing wrecks. He had reveled in such things before.

Before Raimon.

There was a little voice in his head, one that sounded an awful lot like Kageyama, and it told him that he was weak. That Raimon had softened him. That the genius captain of the Teikoku Eleven was long dead and that Kidou was nothing but a shell without it.

Kidou took another deep breath and ignored the voice. He was angry, and he knew how to turn that anger to his advantage.

Even if he wasn’t only angry at Prominence.

Kidou cast one last dark look at Fudou and Burn facing off, and pretended that the surge of fury was directed only towards Burn. The next second, he clamped down on the rage and used it to make his sprint a little faster, until he was able to slide and tackle the ball out from underneath a Prominence midfielder. He pushed himself back up on his feet with his right hand and pushed the ball to Domon in the same smooth movement.

“Come on,” he shouted, but Domon and Endou were already both moving up. They sprinted past an unprepared Prominence defense and arrived in front of the goal as Domon kicked the ball up.

They spun – not equally, but still in tandem because Raimon was about making clashing personalities work – and kicked. The ball gained a purple aura and grew, speeding off towards the goal.

“Death Zone 2!” Kidou shouted along with the two of them, resisting the impulse to look back at Burn. When the ball went in, sending the goalkeeper flying, Kidou turned to walk to his own side of the field.

Along the way, he caught sight of Burn’s stupefied face and smirked.

_Maybe_ you’re _the one who can’t handle the heat_.

* * *

Fudou grinned as the goal went in. Death Zone 2 had been an undisputed success and Raimon as a whole had evolved from their previous match against Prominence. If you could even call the twenty minutes of play a match.

Fudou turned to Burn, intending to rub their early lead in the hotheaded captain’s face, but flinched back from the raw fury that was emanating off of him. Burn’s face was a combination of surprise, confusion and anger – and the anger shone through the brightest.

Fudou made a tactical retreat and silently crept back to his position. He enjoyed antagonizing people, but there was a difference between being snarky and having a death wish. Fudou’s hand jerked up to his neck, to where Gazel had nearly tried to pull his temple charm off.

The Diamond Dust captain had guessed at what he wore around his neck. Burn had already figured it out.

Fudou cautiously met the Prominence captain’s angry gaze as the ball was called back into play. Burn passed it off to Nepper with a sharp kick and let the forward bring it up as he headed down the left flank.

Fudou cursed his own stupidity before he jogged up to meet him. They ran side by side down the left flank, Fudou blocking the passing channel next to Burn as he watched Nepper navigate through the midfield. He passed Kidou easily – far _too_ easily – and met the defense. Unfortunately, Fudou couldn’t ignore the fact that an extremely volatile Aliea captain was running right next to him.

An uncharacteristically _silent_ captain.

Fudou resisted the urge to look at Burn and instead stifled a groan as Nepper evaded Endou easily. Perhaps Endou should’ve worked on his defense skills a little more than Death Zone 2, even if it had gotten them a goal.

“Your captain is playing out of position,” Burn said conversationally, as if they were sitting down for lunch, rather than playing a match to decide the fate of the world. Fudou was so surprised by the one-eighty in his personality that he nearly tripped.

Instead, he tried to calm his racing heart – it was a simple statement, not two hands coming up to strangle him – and flicked a glance at Burn. He was watching Nepper, who’d been thwarted in his attempt by Fubuki’s Frozen Steal.

“We don’t need Endou in goal to defeat you,” Fudou sniped back, and changed direction. Fubuki passed up to Touko, who promptly lost the ball as a Prominence midfielder attacked.

As much as Fudou hated to admit it, Prominence was playing far better than last time. Fortunately, Raimon had also made a few adjustments.

The loose ball was immediately picked up by Kidou, who scanned the field. Fudou saw Burn ignore him and rush ahead, and took advantage of this distraction by skipping a beat and dropping a foot behind Burn. He didn’t shout or otherwise indicate in any way that he was free, but Kidou wasn’t the genius playmaker for nothing.

He passed to Fudou; a straight, clean pass with no one to interfere. Fudou should’ve been able to trap the ball easily and punt it to Aphrodi, whose God Knows would’ve enabled them to pull ahead.

“Flame Steal!”

Instead, Fudou found himself on the ground, staring at the blue sky and blinking stars out of his eyes. He felt like he’d been run over by a truck.

“Fudou!” a shout reached him and he moved to respond, groaning as the movement pulled at several new bruises on his body. Domon caught hold of his elbow and pulled him up.

Fudou coughed. “What the _hell_?”

“Perhaps you should start taking us seriously, Fudou-kun,” Burn said with a smirk, the ball trapped under his feet, and the honorific felt like poison coming from him. Burn eyed his chest, where the temple charm was, where the stone inside pulsed in tune with his heartbeat.

With that, Burn moved to pass by them both, but Domon reacted with a Killer Slide that sent the ball out-of-bounds. Fudou nodded at Domon, grateful for the breather, and jogged over to cover Burn for the ball toss.

Burn’s previous light-heartedness was gone, replaced by a very familiar shit-eating grin. “I will destroy you, Fudou,” he whispered as some purple-haired girl rocked on her tiptoes, holding the ball over her head.

“No fancy threats?” Fudou asked, because he was an idiot with no brain-to-mouth filter.

“I don’t need a fancy threat,” Burn hissed as the ball was tossed back in. He pushed roughly past Fudou, nearly sending him to the ground again, as he headed for the ball. There was no hope of him keeping it, even as fast as he was, as three Raimon midfielders surrounded him. Instead, Burn kicked the ball straight up, and jumped to join it.

Fudou watched him, eyes narrowed in confusion. What was he _doing_? His question was answered as Burn tipped backwards, fire spiraling up to meet his foot.

“Atomic Flare!” the captain yelled, as he kicked the ball to a goal that was ridiculously far away. A few weeks ago, Fudou would have scoffed, but Tsunami Jousuke had recently shown him the mistake that would have been. Still, Tachimukai could probably catch this with his bare hands with a run up to the corner of the goal area – no, actually, he couldn’t, but he _could_ catch this with God Hand.

Fudou spun to watch Burn’s shot land neatly in Tachimukai’s arms. But Burn hadn’t sent it towards the goal, he’d sent it towards Nepper, who everyone had forgotten about in their desperation to control Burn.

Nepper, who grinned and met Burn’s Atomic Flare with one of his own, sending the ball crashing into Tachimukai and the goal.

* * *

“Does the stupid midfielder think he can keep up with me?” a short, orange-haired girl trilled at she literally pirouetted around Kidou. Kidou grinned savagely in response and took a step to the side as Domon performed Killer Slide, neatly trapping the ball.

“Perhaps you need glasses,” Kidou snarled back, “because you seem to be going blind.”

Not the best of comebacks, but Kidou made do. He had to run all out to keep up with Prominence and it was taking its toll on him. He’d exhausted his wit at the beginning, when Fudou and Burn’s little spat had somehow spread through the entire field.

He took the ball up the right flank, scanning the field. Mostly empty, but Domon was behind him and Endou was too far away. Aphrodi, however, was clear, and Kidou was just calculating a pass to him when his way was blocked.

“More dribbling, less talking, _genius_ ,” the Prominence midfielder crowed as he tripped the ball out from underneath Kidou. Kidou cursed and caught himself before he face-planted into the ground. He turned just in time to see Domon reach the midfielder.

“Maybe _you_ shouldn’t be talking, hmm?” Domon said smartly, a second before he stole the ball back. “Kidou, Death Zone!” The shout was loud and forced, an obvious decoy, but Prominence fell for it.

Immediately three defenders trapped Kidou in place. He eyed the wall around him irritably even as he gave an imperceptible nod to Domon. “Not that I’m not flattered by the attention,” Kidou said, delving deep into his memories of the cold-hearted Teikoku captain he used to be, “but shouldn’t you be watching the goal?”

Kidou made no effort to hide his smile as all three defenders turned in unison. Aphrodi had the ball and was a few steps in front of the goal, his hand in the air as he snapped his fingers.

And then Aphrodi was on the ground, the ball gone. Kidou swore again and ducked under the outstretched arm of a defender before scanning the field. Where, where –

There! Nepper grinned before sending the ball straight to Burn. Fudou, who had stayed as Burn’s mark despite the increasingly physical nature of their altercations, kicked the ball out of Burn’s range with an incredibly precise tap. Burn retaliated by knocking Fudou to the ground.

Kidou gritted his teeth. The game was still tied, but the match was quickly degenerating into utter chaos. Both teams were spending more time trash-talking each other than trying to score and the number of quips had only increased as the game went on. At this rate, someone would end up getting punched. Kidou had his money on Fudou, who’d pushed himself back up and spat something at Burn. Burn’s retaliating lunge was only blocked by Fubuki, who’d somehow gotten between the two of them.

Neither team had advanced after those first two goals. Kidou had tightened up the defense and left Fudou as Burn’s only mark, which had been a good choice as whatever the two were arguing about had left them both isolated on the left flank. Domon and Fubuki were easy backup if Fudou needed it and while Prominence had quickly learned to function without their captain, it was clear his absence was hurting them.

On the other hand, Prominence had also tightened up their defense. Kidou couldn’t even get near the goal line without being blocked by two or three defenders. One Prominence defender was stuck to Gouenji like glue and whatever he was whispering in the ace striker’s ear had upset him enough that he was missing easy opportunities to receive a pass. And Nepper had somehow figured out how to counter Heaven’s Time so even Aphrodi couldn’t make it to the goal, only growing more bruised every time he tried.

It was a stalemate, and one that Raimon was going to lose. Kidou was already out of breath and flagging. Fudou didn’t look much better. The frustration and exhaustion emanating from Aphrodi in waves couldn’t be good. And they should’ve all been thankful that Gouenji hadn’t started aiming Fire Tornados at people.

Kidou sneaked a look at the bench. Could the Midfield Magician –

The halftime whistle cut through his hazy thoughts, and Kidou gratefully limped off the field.

* * *

“Scared, Fudou?” Burn laughed when he walked back onto the field and saw Fudou’s shaking hands. Fudou bit back both the first and second response he would’ve made, instead crossing his arms and sneering.

“You wish, Burn,” Fudou said as the rest of Raimon walked back onto the field, but his heart wasn’t in his retort. Halftime had been depressing by all standards. Endou had failed to give his usual pep talk, Gouenji had looked a few minutes from exploding and even Kidou’s face had been grim. Prominence may have come to destroy them but they weren’t on Gaia’s level. Instead, it had become a war of attrition as both teams sniped at each other. But Raimon was tiring much faster than Prominence, and there was still one half left to play.

“I’m not the one who’s playing so far out of his league that he needs a magic stone to keep up,” Burn laughed, and Fudou went still, his fingers twitching as he fought the urge to reach for the temple charm. Burn had glanced it every time they faced off, but this was the first time in the entire match that he’d brought it up. Perhaps he had tired of his earlier material when Fudou stopped rising to the bait.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fudou said flatly as the referee blew the whistle and the ball was kicked into play. He took a second to scan the field – Kidou-kun had the ball, but he couldn’t keep it – before turning back to Burn. It was clear that his job was keeping the Prominence captain out of the fray.

“Is that what you told Gazel?” Burn laughed. “Before he tried to rip it off your neck?” This time, Fudou couldn’t control the urge and his hand went to his neck, grasping the chain like it was his lifeline.

In many ways, it was. Fudou knew full well that without it, he would be nowhere near powerful enough to keep up with Aliea.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fudou repeated, taking a step forward as Burn shifted. He kept half his attention on the field, wincing as a Prominence tackle stole the ball from Domon.

“Gazel didn’t have it,” Burn continued as if Fudou hadn’t spoken, “which is why he wanted it so badly. He wanted the power that it gives.”

Fudou turned fully away from Burn, done with this conversation. But Burn didn’t give up so easily. “Just like you wanted power,” Burn said, and Fudou wanted to deny it, wanted to shout and throw the words back in Burn’s face.

But he couldn’t. It was true. All true. Fudou had only ever wanted power, even when he’d been a small kid on the streets of Tokyo, running around with a gang because his father was weak and his mother no longer had time for him.

“All power corrupts,” Burn hissed, “but absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And that was true as well. Hadn’t he seen firsthand what happened to those in Aliea? Desarm, Burn, Gazel, Gran. They had all been ruined on some fundamental level.

But Fudou wasn’t ruined. Was he?

Nepper had the ball now, and he sent it to Fudou’s right. Fudou startled, and realized that he’d lost track of Burn in his musings. Burn had taken advantage of Fudou’s distraction and sped down the field to take Nepper’s pass.

Fudou cursed as Burn easily trapped the ball and he tried to run after him. But it was too late. Domon and Endou had overcommitted to the failed Death Zone offensive and Fubuki was on the other side of the field, blocking Nepper’s path but too far away to stop Burn. Burn had a clear path to the goal and he took it.

And for the first time in a Raimon match, Burn was in front of the goal. Fudou’s heart leaped in his throat as he watched Tachimukai take a determined stand. _No!_ he wanted to shout as Tachimukai closed his eyes. This was not the time to try out an untested _hissatsu_. Not when the most dangerous player in Prominence was going to use one of the most destructive shots that Fudou had seen.

Fudou jogged to a stop, unable to do anything but stand and watch as Tachimukai tried to defend against a shot that even Endou hadn’t faced. Burn arced high in the sky, his foot connecting with the ball with a roar of flame that drowned out everything else in the stadium. Tachimukai stood there silently, whispering to himself and Fudou sank to his knees.

It was all his fault. He had allowed Burn to distract him, allowed his weaknesses to shine like a beacon and now Tachimukai would have to pay the price.

A second before Atomic Flare reached him, Tachimukai’s eyes snapped open. And the entire field stopped and stared in shock as two gigantic arms snapped into place on either side of Atomic Flare, as more grew from Tachimukai’s back and locked around the ball of flame, snuffing it out completely.

* * *

Aphrodi’s gaze didn’t move from Fudou’s hunched form even when he joined in the congratulations. (Although, when you were celebrating a saved shot _this_ passionately, something had to be really wrong.) Tachimukai mastering Mugen the Hand had been a stroke of luck, but he’d seen Fudou’s face crumple as Atomic Flare sped towards the goal.

He was worried. One Aliea captain had already tried to kill Fudou and from the stories he’d heard, Fubuki hadn’t been the only one to break down in front of Epsilon. In many ways, Fudou’s relationship with the Prominence captain was more antagonistic than any of the others and Aphrodi hadn’t wanted him to be left alone with Burn.

He’d seen their whispered arguments, seen color rush into and drain from Fudou’s face. Sure, Burn hadn’t put his hands around Fudou’s throat, but their interaction was still draining the midfielder. Fudou walked like there was a guillotine at his neck – heavy, resigned, and engulfed in growing dread and despair.

Aphrodi would have to keep an eye on him. He had joined Raimon to help the team that broke him free of Kageyama’s grip and the least he could do was push Fudou out of the shadows of Shin Teikoku.

If Fudou faltered, Aphrodi would step in.

* * *

“How much more luck can Raimon dredge up?” Burn said as Fudou checked him, not letting up for even a step. “Your goalkeeper is tiring and soon, I’ll finish the job.”

Fudou’s stomach roiled at the thought of Tachimukai lying motionless in a charred goal, but he kept a level voice as he replied, “You’re not going anywhere.”

“So you say,” Burn laughed. “You’re faltering, Fudou.” It was true. The sudden bursts of power had grown more random as Fudou’s frustration increased and he didn’t even know what was causing the fluctuation. He had been perfectly fine in Shin Teikoku.

“You keep demanding more,” Burn said, as if he’d read Fudou’s mind. “A taste of power wasn’t enough. You have to get more and more and _more_ until it destroys you.”

“What the _hell_ are you talking about?” Fudou cursed lowly, stepping to the right as Burn tried to maneuver around him.

“You’re really asking me?” Burn raised an eyebrow. “You’ve seen it firsthand. Power destroyed your team.”

Fudou tried not to think of Sakuma and Genda and water rushing through corridors as an anguished scream filled his head. “It will not destroy me,” Fudou said dismissively, trying to calm his pounding heart. Something _other_ pulsed in harmony with it.

“You are a moth in front of a flame,” Burn laughed, “flitting closer and closer in awe and wonder and when you feel the heat of the fire you’ll be too close to draw away.”

“I’m not too close to draw away,” Fudou snapped back, dropping all pretense now that he didn’t know what Burn was talking about. “It’s a tool for power and I wield it. That’s all.”

“You _will_ want to let it go,” Burn replied. “And then, and only then, will you find out that you can’t.” There was no smirk or taunt in his tone, only a detached fascination, as if he was observing a trainwreck from a distance.

It was the breaking point. Fudou’s temper, frayed as it was, snapped with the weight of Burn’s warning. He was sick and tired of people telling him that he couldn’t handle power. Kageyama had called him _weak_ , Ichinose had told him he couldn’t handle the strain of Emperor Penguin No. 1, Endou had forbidden him from using it, Fubuki tiptoed around him, Aphrodi sought to coddle him, and now – now his teammates had ignored him and stuck him with a megalomaniac!

Fudou, who had scored against Desarm, who had caught up to Gazel, who had held his own against Burn, who had _lied_ to Gran’s face when the red-haired captain asked him where the Aliea stone necklaces were.

Fudou was more powerful than anyone else on this field, and he was going to show them _**all**_.

Purple haze washed over his vision again but Fudou no longer cared. All that mattered was the glorious rush of power that swept through every vein in his body. He stepped past Burn and sped straight for Nepper, who had the ball. Anger and hate throbbed in his mind with every step. Nepper blanched at the look on Fudou’s face, and he took a step back. Kidou rushed in and stole the ball easily.

Fudou ground his teeth against each other, but continued his run up the field, waiting for Kidou to pass to him. The Prominence defenders looked at him in startled confusion. One was still covering Gouenji, and Nepper had doubled back to guard Aphrodi, who looked half a breath away from collapse. There was no one else strong enough to take the lead and take the goal and Fudou smiled. _He_ had the power now, _he_ had the ability to change Raimon’s fate, _he_ and _he_ _alone_ was Raimon’s offense. Emperor Penguin No. 1 could not be blocked, after all.

Fudou took one look back to see that Kidou had been stalled halfway, three defenders collapsing onto him. Their eyes met, an electric message transmitting between them, and Kidou skipped a step, neatly sending the ball through a tiny gap between the Prominence defenders and straight to Fudou.

Fudou grinned, waiting for the ball to come to him, already bringing his fingers to his mouth to make the whistle that would draw the birds from the ground, excited for the pain that would course through him and be reflected on the goalkeeper’s face as he tried to stop an unstoppable shot.

Kidou thought that Emperor Penguin No. 1 had been a mistake. Fudou didn’t think that Kageyama made mistakes.

A sharp snap rang in the air and Fudou spun towards it. Aphrodi stood in the passing lane, the ball at his feet and one hand raised high in the air.

What?

Aphrodi blurred out of sight. Nepper looked surprised for a split second – to be honest, Fudou couldn’t believe that Aphrodi was still standing either – before blurring out of sight as well.

A second later, a sudden gust blew through Prominence’s defense and Aphrodi emerged, landing on the ground with a jarring thud. He lay there, splayed out on the ground, limbs limp and his golden hair fanning around his body, and Fudou felt dread curl up inside his stomach until he noticed that the ball had gone out-of-bounds.

It was Prominence’s ball.

Nepper moved to kick the ball back into play and Fudou tensed, eyes on Nepper and mind on the ball, on wanting the ball, on _needing_ the ball. His thoughts were sluggish and murky like a swamp, and from their depths bubbled up, slowly and yet growing surer with each breath, the idea that something was going wrong.

But after Nepper threw the ball in, Kidou neatly intercepted it. The whistle sounded.

The game was over.

* * *

Fudou had locked himself inside the bathroom. He couldn’t see anyone. He couldn’t let anyone see him. Not like this.

His hands hadn’t stopped shaking since the end of the match. Fudou could hear Burn’s words on repeat, over and over and over again as he stumbled dazedly through Teikoku’s corridors.

– “ _You’re a moth in front of a flame.” –_

Fudou couldn’t deal with it any more. The power, the fluctuations, the tension – hell, he’d nearly lost it on the football field! He’d been ready to use Emperor Penguin No. 1!

Fudou could not handle power at such a price. Raimon would drop him like yesterday’s news, but it was better, far better, to go back to Ehime and pick up garbage than to turn into a monster.

He was not Kageyama and he would _never_ become him.

Fudou drew the temple charm out from under his shirt with trembling fingers. He had seen his opportunity when his mother gave him the charm before he left home. He hadn’t wanted to take a chance with anyone recognizing the stone.

_Kira_ Hitomiko was Raimon’s coach. And _Kira_ Seijirou ran Aliea Academy. Fudou did not think that was a coincidence.

It had been so easy to lie to Gran. So easy to tell the Gaia captain that Fudou had left the necklace with Kageyama, so easy to pin the blame on a dead man. It was only one piece, after all. Inconsequential.

But now it was killing him.

Fudou loosened the drawstrings on the small pouch and slid it off before moving to take the necklace off. But he couldn’t. His hands closed around the necklace, but his arms made no move to lift. It was as if they were locked in place. Fudou stared at himself in the mirror with growing horror.

– “ _You will want to let it go and then, and only then, will you find out that you can’t.” –_

No. Fudou refused to become another victim. He remembered the anguished look in Genda’s eyes and Sakuma’s never-ending scream.

_No._ He was Fudou Akio and a silly little necklace wasn’t going to defeat him. He no longer wanted its power.

_Don’t you?_

The whisper was everywhere and yet nowhere. The words wrapped around him like constricting bands as Fudou fought against the darkness that grew in his heart. It was just another enemy, just another opponent and as long as Fudou figured out its weakness, he could defeat it –

The stone pulsed once, washing everything with a purple tint.

The darkness wanted only power and Fudou was already caught in its grasp.

He stared into his reflection, into the eyes of a terrified boy, into the smirk of a power-hungry monster as the Aliea stone lay twinkling above his heart.


	14. Chapter 14

The whistle blew, and Kidou stopped mid-kick. He let his foot roll along the ball and come to a stop once fully on top of it. He put his weight on the ball and let his head hang, focusing only on the black and white pentagons and the give of the ball under the spikes of his boot. A little more and it just might burst.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his mind still working on a way to score in the final seconds. Domon had been ready. Endou, too, although now both were already out of sight. Had they faltered, in the end? Had the referee seen that and ended the game? Kidou had been so sure that the ref would give Raimon the final play. Had to, considering what was at stake.

Not this time.

There was a commotion behind him. Aphrodi, no doubt. Kidou had been stunned when he'd intercepted the pass that had been meant for Fudou. But he knew why Aphrodi had done it, too. Fudou had been about to do it again.

His blood thrummed, and his brain lashed free, analyzing the final seconds of the match furiously. Everyone's positions and movements in the dying moments of the game were seared into his mind, and Kidou examined each moment, trying to find anything he could have done to have made it _count_. If he could have created the win in a different way. There was always something that could have been done.

But no matter how hard he tried to pull his mind from it, no matter how much he rewound and fast-forwarded to find the sweet spot in time, a passing lane he'd missed during the actual game, he could see nothing but him making that pass to Fudou, and Fudou receiving it and making the game-winning goal.

Kidou shook his head, trying to clear his head of distractions, and grit his teeth. Belatedly, he realized his nails were digging into his palms, and with effort he relaxed his fists. Taking his foot off the ball, he sent it flying clear to the other side of the field with one explosive kick. Then he looked up at the darkening sky and ran through the final minute of play one last time.

Aphrodi had been weakened to the point of not even being able to make assists. Gouenji had been compromised by his defender. Burn and Nepper – all right, Burn had been occupied with Fudou, but he'd proven he could lose him if the situation called for it – had been too dangerous to push Raimon's defense up higher and relieve the burden on its midfielders. And any attempt Kidou had made to go it himself had been quashed by Prominence's three defenders. Fudou had been the only one even near the goal.

And if they had played Ichinose instead of Fudou from the start?

No. Burn would have got to him like he'd done with everyone else. And Burn wouldn't have stuck to Ichinose like he'd done with Fudou, so he would have thrown his full offensive strength at the goal. And though Tachimukai had performed admirably today, Kidou didn't think he would have done so well if he'd had to deal with the onslaught of both Burn and Nepper. He hated to admit it, but Fudou's arrogant speech just before the game had been correct. He had done better than Ichinose would have in his place.

And yet, despite the fact that they had played their best cards…

"Kidou."

The greeting, lightly delivered in a neutral tone, flew past Kidou's thoughts. Only when it was repeated, in a much deeper voice and accompanied by a hand on his shoulder, did the thoughts come to a stop. Kidou looked up.

Genda and Sakuma stood opposite him, shoulder to shoulder. Genda's stance was strong, and he stood tall, but it was clear that he was still feeling the strain from the practice match. And, of course, Sakuma was propping himself up with one crutch, leaning ever so slightly into Genda.

It was all Kidou could do not to look away. If they'd won, revenge against Aliea would have been served for the both of them. Kidou didn't want to admit that Burn's words still cut, even now after they'd disappeared.

"Genda," he said instead, and it came out as a croak. He cleared his throat, dredged up his reassuring smile from somewhere, and continued, "Sakuma."

"It's a shame about the game," Sakuma said without preamble. "You played well."

Kidou let out a laugh. Trust Sakuma to always try to make him feel better. "We didn't win."

"You'll get them next time," Genda said firmly. He squeezed Kidou's shoulder, then lifted his hand to point behind Kidou. "How is Aphrodi?"

Kidou shifted. "You're right. I should go check on him." He turned, but Sakuma said, "Kidou, wait. There's something we need to tell you. It's about Fudou."

Kidou's mood, which he had pulled up to humor his two old friends, came crashing down in an instant. Just the person he had been trying not to think about. He could guess what Sakuma and Genda were about to tell him, too. Fudou had been about to use Emperor Penguin No. 1. He was driving himself so hard that he was even willing to break the rule Raimon had imposed on him for his own good. That probably covered the gist of it.

But what if Fudou had been right about being able to take it? He was clearly stronger than he looked; his recovery from using Emperor Penguin No. 1 against Epsilon Kai had been so quick and seamless that seeing him execute passes and tackles with the same vindictive smirk had conjured up resentful thoughts of Sakuma within Kidou for a week. And Fudou had been the one who argued the hardest in favor of using it. Raimon wasn't his babysitter. If Fudou wanted to use Emperor Penguin No. 1, it was his business.

"Hey. Kidou! Are you listening? You okay?"

Kidou jolted, and he nodded out of reflex. It was a good thing Sakuma and Genda couldn't see how far his gaze and thoughts had wandered through his goggles. "Yeah, go on."

Sakuma sniffed and folded his arms, or at least did a one-armed version of it as his other arm was on his crutch. "So, you'll keep an eye on him, yeah?"

Kidou nodded again, his thoughts already drifting elsewhere. "Of course."

"We'll talk more another time," Genda said, and Kidou focused back on them, suddenly irritated with himself for letting his thoughts wander when he was with friends he didn't get to see much. "Seems like your team wants you."

Genda was right: Gouenji was jogging up to them, his stern gaze fixated on Kidou.

"Aphrodi's asking for you," was all he said before he turned and jogged back. Sakuma frowned, but Genda laughed.

"I deserved that," Kidou said ruefully. "I should've been with them from the start."

Sakuma sniffed. "Maybe, but he didn't have to be so stroppy with you."

"You take care, Kidou," Genda said, and Kidou nodded, actually meaning it this time.

"You too," he said. "Both of you."

He strode towards Aphrodi, who was lying on a stretcher surrounded by his teammates. When they saw Kidou approach, they parted to let them speak directly.

"How are you feeling?" Kidou asked once he got close enough.

Aphrodi smirked, but it lacked its usual arrogance and superiority. "I've been better," he said. His carelessly light tone sounded brittle and fake. "I don't think I'll be playing for a while."

Regret washed over Kidou. What had he been doing since the game ended? Wallowing in self-pity instead of dealing with actually important things, like his teammates who needed help? Why hadn't he realized earlier just how bad Aphrodi's injuries were? Just because Kidou was no longer captain of a team didn't mean he could neglect his teammates.

"Never mind that," Aphrodi said. "You'll defeat the aliens without me. Just keep playing like Raimon always has." His calm eyes probed for Kidou's, but they didn't quite achieve eye contact through his goggles. Kidou suddenly felt like Aphrodi was saying much more than he could understand.

Still, he nodded, because he was Kidou Yuuto and an important part of Raimon, no matter where he'd come from and what he'd done. "Of course we will."

Aphrodi's smirk softened into a smile, and he closed his eyes, looking so serene that alarm shot through Kidou's heart. He looked around for Coach Hitomiko, or, hell, the ambulance and paramedics that were surely on their way. Surely someone had called them like he would have done, if he'd been at the scene from the start. Right?

"Relax, Kidou." Aphrodi sounded amused, and Kidou looked back down to see him with his eyes back open. But his complexion had lost its luster, and it was taking him visible effort to stay awake. "Do me a favor?"

Kidou bit back the words he'd been about to say, to tell Aphrodi to rest. "What is it?"

"I saw Fudou-kun go to the bathroom after the match ended. He should still be in there. Can you bring him to me?"

It was all about Fudou today, in his thoughts and outside of them, wasn't it?

"Of course," Kidou promised, and made for the bathroom.

* * *

Fudou plunged his hands into cold water and splashed his face again. The chill jolted him, throwing him from the wind rushing past his ears and the roaring in his heart.

He stared at the person in the mirror. It grinned back at him. Fudou's hand flew to his lips, but they weren't turned up. His world narrowed in a rush to his reflection, the stranger with the malevolent smile, the cubicles behind him dark and ominous. It was getting louder and louder. Fudou stood rooted to the spot, terrified of what could be waiting for him.

"Fudou!" A shout broke through his stupor, shattering his reflection. Fudou turned automatically to see Kidou standing in the doorway, his arms crossed and his expression unreadable behind his tinted goggles. Judging by the annoyance rolling off of him, though, it wasn't the first time he called Fudou's name.

Fudou snuck a quick peek at the mirror – his reflection was standing there, half-turned to the door, with wide eyes and a pale face. Nothing strange about it. Fudou turned before the boy in the mirror smiled and he stared at Kidou, waiting for the gamemaker to tell him what he wanted.

Come to think of it, this was the first time Kidou had ever specifically sought him out. Something must have been seriously wrong.

Kidou stared at him suspiciously. "Are you all right?"

There was a thread of concern in his voice and for one moment of madness, Fudou thought about telling him everything. Surely Teikoku's genius playmaker, Kageyama's perfect protégé, could help him. Surely Kidou didn't hate him so much that he'd abandon Fudou to the darkness of power.

Then Kidou's head shifted down and although Fudou couldn't see his gaze, he realized that he hadn't covered the Aliea stone again. The visceral fear that shot through him was sudden and complete and Fudou couldn't tell if the emotion was his or the stone's. Was there even a difference anymore?

Fudou sneered. "Of course I am. I'm not Sakuma-kun after all. And I'm most certainly not _you_." His sneer was laced with desperation and a half-hidden need to be caught out in the lie but he'd chosen his subject too well. Kidou's hands clenched into fists and the annoyance shifted into anger.

The anger fueled the purple stone on his chest and it pulsed once more. Mouth dry, Fudou scoffed, "Were you _worried_ , Kidou-kun?" He made his tone as saccharine as he could, until he was nearly gagging on it. "Were you _concerned_ about me?"

Kidou's mouth fell open, and his jaw worked, but no sound came out. The burst of anger from him was tangible enough to grasp onto, and Fudou did so gratefully. Kidou's hatred, he could deal with. He _had_ dealt with, in fact. He would rather focus on Kidou's ire than the pull of Aliea on his heart.

"Or did you come to lecture me?" Fudou raised an eyebrow, his mask becoming stronger by the second. "Come to tell me off for trying to use Emperor Penguin No. 1?"

"Don't you have any sense?" Kidou finally said in a low voice. "Don't you realize why we told you not to use that technique?" He paused for a long moment before speaking again. "It's _forbidden_ , Fudou. How can you not see that, especially after what it did to Sakuma?"

The elephant in the room, finally named. Fudou's smile stretched, until he could no longer tell that it was fake. Purple streaked through his vision.

His heart stopped. Fudou clamped his eyes shut. When he opened them again, the purple was gone.

"You think I care?" he answered, trying to remember what they had been talking about just moments ago. It came back to him, and he continued, gripping onto the topic with all his might, "You think I'm as weak as your pathetic little friend?" Kidou stared at him in blind shock and Fudou took advantage of his stupefaction to deal as much damage as he could.

Gouenji was too involved in his own issues. Endou didn't interact with him. Tachimukai, as cheerful as he was, was too naïve to see Fudou's problems. The only threat was Kidou's keen observational skills and Fudou needed to make sure that the genius ex-captain never turned his gaze onto him.

"Sakuma was pitiful," Fudou emphasized. "You know that. He couldn't shoot No. 1 once without breaking into tears. He was weak and feeble and a _loser_. I am nothing like him, Kidou-kun, and I will use Emperor Penguin No. 1 as many times as I like! I have power that you, with your friendship and your teamwork, can't even _dream_ about."

His words finally broke through Kidou's shock.

"You _dare_ – !" Kidou all but shouted and lunged at him. His fist came up, and Fudou watched it fly forward, coming closer and closer, until it stopped only an arm's length away from him.

Kidou was breathing heavily as he withdrew his fist and stepped back. His lip was curled and Fudou could feel the laser beam of scorn directed at him through his goggles. Good. This was the way it should be.

"Aphrodi wants you," Kidou ground out. "For some reason. Honestly, I don't know how anyone on the team can stand you." He stalked out of the bathroom, pausing half out the door. Without turning, he said in a voice as cold as ice, "Sakuma is worth a hundred of you, and all your cowardice will not change that." With that, he left, slamming the door shut behind him.

Fudou stood there for at least another minute, his heart beating hard. He took deep breaths, in and out, until his brain calmed down and his vision went back to normal. When he finally felt like he could talk to people without losing the plot entirely, he headed back to Raimon's bench.

The sight of the paramedics, hoisting Aphrodi up on a stretcher, sent him to a stuttering stop, straight back into the storm.

Had it been that bad? Were Aphrodi's injuries taking him out of commission? The only reason he'd pushed himself for that final steal had been to stop Fudou from getting the ball and using Emperor Penguin No. 1. Had – had Fudou's actions led to yet another casualty?

The two paramedics, clad in emergency yellow, paused and Fudou could see a thin hand reach out from behind them, beckoning him forward. Clearly Aphrodi had seen him. Walking – no, jogging, he couldn't make them wait – forward to meet him was the last thing Fudou wanted to do, but he had to own up to the consequences of his actions.

"You came," Aphrodi said once Fudou was within earshot. He sounded pleased.

_What happened_ _to you_ , Fudou almost asked, but stopped himself because he already knew the answer. Instead, he said, "That looks painful."

Then promptly mentally kicked himself, because obviously something bad enough to get the ambulance here would hurt.

Aphrodi pushed himself up onto his elbows and smiled thinly. "It's not as bad as it looks," he said, obviously lying through his teeth. He must've seen the skepticism on Fudou's face, because he changed tack.

"Never mind about that," he continued. "We don't have much time. I just wanted to tell you something before I left. The reason I used Heaven's Time –"

"Yes." Fudou was conscious of the Aliea stone, once more hidden under his shirt, hanging from his neck. "I," he swallowed, then realized he couldn't say much more. His throat had dried up and his tongue felt thick and useless in his mouth.

"It's not what you're thinking," Aphrodi said. His voice was growing thinner. "You're doing fine too, Fudou."

Fudou let out a bark of laughter. "Me? _Fine_?" It was, somehow, easier to bare his soul to someone who seemed already half gone. "You knew – you know what I was about to do! That's why you intercepted Kidou's pass!"

"I don't regret it." Aphrodi looked about to say more, but what other wisdom he had to dispense was kept to himself as pain flashed across his features and he fell back onto the stretcher. When he opened his eyes again, he didn't make any effort to lift his head back up and Fudou had to crouch down to hear what he was saying. "Fudou. Your biggest weakness… It's the people around you."

Fudou thought back to Kidou reprimanding him earlier, of Ichinose back when he'd first joined questioning his place in the caravan, of people like Kabeyama ganging up on him whenever they could. "You can say that again."

It was, after all, why he pushed Kidou away so ruthlessly. Anyone who could discover his secret was a threat.

Wait a minute. He didn't _want_ the Aliea stone. Did he?

" _No_ ," Aphrodi said hoarsely, looking at him like he was a stupid child. On a normal day, Fudou would have lashed out, but right now it was better than him half dying. "That's not what I meant. Just… don't be afraid to rely on people. They're all here to help. Like – like Diamond Dust."

"Yeah. Right." Was Aphrodi on painkiller drugs? Fudou thought he was spouting complete nonsense, but he wasn't about to say that to a man in pain.

Aphrodi's gaze found his. It was earnest, but Fudou also saw frustration and desperation. He really had to be about to pass out.

"I mean it," he said.

Fudou immediately moderated his expression to make himself look more sincere. This was the guy who had saved him, after all. (But, a voice whispered at the back of his mind, he'd also cost them the game.) He took Aphrodi's hand and then, after a moment, shook it too since Aphrodi clearly couldn't.

"Fine. I got you."

* * *

The ambulance took Aphrodi away, leaving the rest of Raimon at Teikoku. After all he'd gone through today, Fudou didn't feel like packing up and leaving, only to most likely end up camping in some forest that night. No doubt the rest of the team didn't either. Fortunately, Teikoku saw this and was generous enough to offer the Inazuma Caravan accommodation for the night.

They all got a private room, because Teikoku's boarders had all gone home due to Aliea and also because – how many times was it now that this had been shoved in their faces? – Teikoku was filthy rich. After a glum dinner that the managers tried and failed to liven up, most of Ramon retired to their rooms.

Of course, Fudou was outside kicking a ball around. (On Pitch #4, in fact.) He always made sure to practice whenever he could. He most definitely wasn't worried about where his thoughts would stray if they were left to their own devices or anything.

Which meant that the Aliea stone was officially more terrifying than his flashbacks to Shin Teikoku, which really was saying something now that he thought about it.

Tachimukai was with him. (More accurately, Fudou had dragged him out, but he wasn't dwelling on that bit. Okay, so perhaps he wasn't over drowning in metal corridors just yet.)

"That was a really intense game, wasn't it, Fudou-san?"

Fudou made what he hoped sounded like a noncommittal grunt. "It was pretty tough. Nice job on mastering Mugen the Hand, though."

Tachimukai beamed. Fudou was taken aback, but then swiftly made several realizations that he should have complimented him sooner. This _hissatsu_ technique meant the world to Tachimukai. Personally, Fudou didn't care at all about possessing unique _hissatsu_ techniques, but he wasn't the one who had made himself stand out by copying Endou. Even if the basis of the technique had been from Endou's notebooks, Tachimukai had finally succeeded in producing something that he could call his own.

"It was all thanks to you," Tachimukai gushed out. "And Tsunami-san. But you helped the most. When you told me about the Great Wall of China, it took a while for it to sink in, but it reminded me of the strength of many small parts. All the individual bricks that make up the wall. When Burn used Atomic Flare, it was all I could think about. If my two hands couldn't stop it, then how about a few more? And then they just kept coming. So thank you, Fudou-san. I couldn't have done it without you."

"Uh…" Fudou wasn't sure how exactly to react. "You're welcome, I guess."

The truth was, the Great Wall advice had only been generic motivation he'd dredged up from the depths of his memories. It was coincidence that Tachimukai had found it so helpful. But with the way Tachimukai was looking at him, it wasn't like he could tell him that.

Tachimukai blushed, perhaps finally realizing how embarrassing the torrent of appreciation he had just let forth was, and stepped back. "You've done so much for me, Fudou-san. You trained with me and encouraged me when nobody else did. So, if there's anything I can do for you in return –"

_Tell him_ , a part of his mind whispered, and was obliterated by a wash of purple anger. Fudou tried not to reach for the chain tightening around his neck and instead gave Tachimukai a wan smile. His intensely sincere expression reminded Fudou of his conversation with Aphrodi earlier that day, and that only made the Aliea stone feel colder against his chest. Trying to take his mind off it, Fudou said, "Hey, Tachimukai..."

"What is it?"

Fudou stopped himself. He straightened up, looking at the young man opposite him. Tachimukai was standing straight, not even fidgeting, no longer the meek midfielder from the past.

_He doesn't need you anymore_ , the stone whispered, and anger welled up inside of him.

"Never mind." Fudou found the ball with his foot and then took a few steps back. "Forget what I said. Let's keep going."

* * *

"Congratulations," came the frosty voice as Burn crossed the main football field of Aliea Academy. Burn stopped, a grin spreading across his face as he turned to see Gran standing in the middle of the empty field.

The Gaia captain looked _pissed_. His red hair was askew, his uniform was crumpled and there were dark circles around his blazing eyes. Even his normally emotionless expression looked cracked, rage shining through. It seemed like Daddy's Boy was taking the loss of favor hard.

"For what?" Burn cocked an eyebrow. "The match? Thanks, Gran, I didn't know you were watching."

Gran's lips tightened and Burn's smile grew. It was exhilarating, having this much power over Gran. But Gran met his smirk with an icy gaze. "Actually," he said slowly, "I meant for retaining _his_ favor even after your humiliating defeat."

Burn's smile slowly slipped off his face. "We tied," Burn said evenly.

"You didn't win," Gran pointed out, "and anything that isn't a victory is a defeat."

Burn's eyes narrowed. "How the hell do you know what victory is?" he snarled. They had fought every second of that game and Nepper's goal had been a great shot. Burn would've made many more if he hadn't been so distracted by the midfielder with the Aliea pendant.

Destroying Fudou Akio was almost worth a tie, anyway. Burn's smile returned as he imagined the wide-eyed look on the boy's face. A little bit more and he would shattered right then and there. Burn had, after all, seen what the Aliea did to Reize and Desarm. The Aliea stone was kerosene and he knew exactly where to light the flame.

"I defeated Raimon by nearly twenty points," Gran said, shrugging lightly. "I'd say that was a victory."

Burn's face twisted into a scowl and he stepped closer to Gran, staring into the other captain's green eyes. "You don't know _anything_ ," Burn hissed, and felt his anger rise when Gran didn't react to the taunt.

The Gaia captain merely stared, not breaking eye contact. "If you say so," he said tonelessly and Burn didn't know if he was imagining the faint hint of amusement in his voice. It was, however, enough to goad him further.

"Raimon has gotten better since they played you," Burn growled, stepping closer until they were nose to nose. "They got their striker back. They got that pet project of yours. They got the Zeus captain."

"That sounds an awful lot like an excuse, Burn," Gran chided lightly.

"Raimon hadn't even beaten Desarm when you faced them!" Burn balled his hands into fists. "They've gotten a whole boatload of new strategies and they won't fall so easily to you now!"

"Endou Mamoru is the only reason that Raimon is winning," Gran said softly. "I faced Endou Mamoru and I defeated him. You did not. That is the only thing that matters."

"Screw you and the high horse you came in on, _Hiroto_ ," Burn spat. "I couldn't care less about your precious Endou-kun. One person doesn't make a team!"

"Yes, which is why yours fell apart without you," Gran replied. For all his visible loss of composure, he was meeting Burn's taunts with a significant lack of temper tantrums. At any other time, Burn might've flagged this as a warning sign, but he was far too angry to contemplate what Gran was planning. "And it's not Endou that's caught your eye, is it, Burn?" Gran tilted his head to the side. "What is it about Fudou-kun that is so interesting to you?"

"I don't have to answer you," Burn bit back. "You're not the favorite anymore, Gran. I don't have to do _anything_ you say. And my team didn't fall apart."

Gran raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You tied with Raimon," he reminded him. "If that's not falling apart, I don't know what is."

"You know what?" Burn hissed. "I'm sick and tired of your attitude. You act so high and mighty just because you beat Raimon once. _Once_! I am going to make you _eat_ those words, Gran!"

"Is that a challenge?" Gran asked and Burn was too incensed to see the faint upturn of Gran's lips.

"Yes it is." Burn bared his teeth. "Gaia versus Prominence. Let's settle the fight for Genesis once and for all!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I want for Christmas is a Farfetch'd on Pokemon GO… fortunately I'll be in East Asia during the holidays so I'm nabbing one for sure! As for you all, hope you have a great holiday period! Thank you so much for being patient with our updates!


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